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PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



CELEBRATION 



OF THE 



SESQUI-CENTENNIAL 



OF THE 



TOWN OF WALTHAM, 



HELD IN MUSIC HALL, 



ON MONDAY, JANUARY i6th, 1888. 
NO Via 1893 ' ! 



WALTHAM, 

Press of Ei'hraim L. Bakry, 

1893. 



, # 



fT 



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MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANIEL P. BANKS. 



Upon the recommendation of the Mayor in his inaugural 
address, January 2, 1893, that the proceedings of the Sesqui- 
Centennial Celebration be collected and printed for preserva- 
tion, the matter was referred on February 20th to the Committee 
on Public Education. The committee subsequently reported 
(April 17th) that they had secured the co-operation of the 
gentlemen who had charge of the preparation of the material 
used on that occasion. The committee recommended that the 
sum of three hundred dollars ($300) be appropriated for the 
purpose of printing and publishing one thousand copies of the 
proceedings. The report was accepted and the following order 
adopted : 

City of Waltham, 
In the Board of Aldermen. 
Ordered : That the sum of three hundred dollars ($300) be and 
hereby is appropriated for putting into permanent form afe complete a 
report as possible of the proceedings at the celebration of the Sesqui- 
Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of Waltham. Said amount 
is to be charged to the account of Printing, Publishing and Stationery, 
and is to be taken from the unappropriated funds in the City Treasury. 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 

At a regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen held on 
Monday evening, December 5th, 1887, the subject of a proper 
observance of the anniversary of Waltham's incorporation was 
introduced by the following communication from His Honor the 
Mayor: 

City of Waltham, 
Mayor's Office, December 5th, 1887. 
To the Board of Aldermen, 

Gentlemen : January 9th, 1888, marks the 150th anniversary of the 
passage of "An Act for dividing the Town of Watertown and erecting 
a new Town there by the name of Waltham." 

It is eminently fitting that the event should be observed in an appro- 
priate manner ; that not only the residents of our City at the present 
time, but all those who claim Waltham as their birthplace or who, for 
any reasons are interested in our welfare, may meet and greet each 
other and rejoice with us not only in our present prosperity but also in 
the indications everywhere apparent of marked improvement and flat- 
tering promise for the future. 

This event is one that should, and I believe will, receive the hearty 
co-operation of all classes of the community. 

Should this idea meet your approval, I suggest that a meeting of 



6 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

citizens be held under the auspices of your honorable bqard, to arrange 
for some suitable celebration of our anniversary. 
Respectfully submitted, 

HENRY N. FISHER, Mayor. 

City of Waltham, 
In the Board of Aldermen, December 5th, 1887. 
Ordered : That a committee of five be appointed for the purpose of 
considering the advisability of celebrating the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Waltham, with author- 
ity to call a public meeting of the citizens for that purpose. 

Aldermen C. H. Moulton, M. H. Stevens, H. N. Allin, M. D. 
Clement and S. E. Clark were appointed that committee. 

City of Waltham, 
In the Board of Aldermen, December 27th, 1887. 
The committee appointed to make arrangements for calling a public 
meeting of the citizens of Waltham to see what action they would take 
towards the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of 
the Town of Waltham, has attended to that duty and called a public 
meeting Wednesday evening, December 21st, in the Council Chamber, 
and at said meeting a committee of fifteen (15) was appointed to take 
charge and make all arrangements for said celebration. 

C. H. MOULTON, Chairman. 



PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE. 

At the meeting of December 21st, which was held in the 
Council Chamber, there were present His Honor Mayor Fisher, 
Aldermen Moulton, Clark and Clement, ex-Mayors B. B. John- 
son and C. F. Stone, Col. Ephraim Stearns, Messrs. Ambrose 
Webster and Nathan Warren, and Thomas H. Armstrong and 
Thomas Curley, Esqrs. Mayor Fisher presided and Thomas 
H. Armstrong was chosen secretary. It was determined that 
a celebration was advisable. The following named gentlemen 
were appointed a committee with full power to make arrange- 
ments : Mayor Fisher, Aldermen Clark, Clement, Allin, Stevens 
and Moulton, ex-Mayors Johnson and Stone, Erskine Warden, 
Esq., Col. E. Stearns, T. H. Armstrong and Thomas Curley, 
Esqrs., Messrs Philip Jones and Ambrose Webster, and Nathan 
Warren, Esq. 

Messrs. Johnson, Warren, Curley and Armstrong were ap- 
pointed a committee to investigate and ascertain the correct 
date of the Town's incorporation. Mr. Webster was appointed 
a committee to attend to securing Music Hall, and Messrs. 
Stearns and Stone were directed to confer with Gen. N. P. 



8 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Banks and see if he would consent to deliver an historical ad- 
dress. It was subsequently reported that Gen. Banks would 
not be able to deliver the address, and Hon. Frederick M. Stone 
was engaged to read the address prepared by the sub-committee 
having the matter in charge. 

At a meeting of the committee December 24th, the commit- 
tee on date reported that the date of incorporation was January 
4th, 1737, Old Style, or January 15th, 1738, New Style. Jan- 
uary 15th, 1888, coming on Sunday, it was voted that January 
1 6th, 1888, be fixed as the date for the celebration. Messrs. 
Stone, Warren and Armstrong were delegated with full powers 
to procure an historical address for the occasion. The duty of 
procuring a poem was also assigned to the same gentlemen. 
Mr. Timothy Leary was made a member of the general com- 
mittee. 

At the meeting of the Board of Aldermen next following, the 
accompanying request of the committee was presented : 

City of Waltham, December 27th, 1887. 
To the Honorable Board of Aldermen, 

Gentlemen : The Committee of Citizens chosen at a meeting con- 
vened by a committee of your Honorable Board to arrange for the 
Sesqui-Centennial Celebration of the Incorporation of the Town of 
Waltham, respectfully request of your Honorable Board an appropriation 
of four hundred dollars ($400), to be expended under the direction of 
His Honor the Mayor, in the proper celebration of said anniversary. 

It is the purpose of the committee to arrange, if possible, for an 
afternoon meeting in Music Hall, with an historical address, and other 
literary exercises and music, to which representatives of our neighbor- 
ing municipalities shall be invited. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE. 9 

Whatever exercises are held in the evening, the committee propose 
shall be at private expense. 

Respectfully submitted, for the Committee, 

THOMAS H. ARMSTRONG, Clerk. 

On the same evening the following order was presented, 
passed to a second reading, and at a subsequent meeting was 
adopted : 

City of Waltham, 
In the Board of Aldermen, December 27th, 1887. 
Ordered : That the sum of six hundred dollars* be and hereby is 
appropriated for the celebration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni- 
versary of the Incorporation of the Town of Waltham. Said sum is to 
be expended by His Honor the Mayor, and to be taken from any monies 
in the treasury not otherwise appropriated ; and charged to the account 
of " Sesqui-Centennial Anniversary." 

At a meeting of the general committee held December 28th, 
it was voted to have a banquet and ball on the evening of Jan- 
uary 1 6th. 

At subsequent meetings the following named gentlemen 
were added to the general committee : F. A. Stearns, T. B. 
Eaton, J. L. Keyser, L. C. Lane, L. O. Dennison, William Gibbs, 
G. A. Smythe, T. P. Smith, J. P. Murphy, A. W. Sherman, A. 
Starbuck, Phineas Lawrence, H. C. Hall, George S. Alden. 

The following sub-committees were appointed, the first named 
of each being chairman : 

Oration : Charles F. Stone, Nathan Warren, Thomas H. Armstrong. 

* The general committee requested that the sum named by them be amended to 
^600, and the order passed in the form given. 



lO SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Ba7iquei a7id Ball : Erskine Warden, Murray D. Clement, Ephraim 
Stearns, Thomas Ciirley, James P. Murphy, VVilham Gibbs, Abel W. 
Sherman, Leonard C. Lane. 

Guests: His Honor Mayor Henry N. Fisher, Horatio N. Allin, 
Ephraim Stearns, Nathan Warren, Timothy Leary. 

Printing: Horatio N. Allin, Thomas Curley, Timothy Leary, John 
L. Keyser, James P. Murphy, George A. Smythe, Thomas P. Smith. 

Music : Ambrose Webster, C. H. Moulton. Samuel E. Clark, Fred- 
erick A. Stearns. 

Decorations : Byron B. Johnson, Milton H. Stevens, Philip Jones. 

Historical Collection : Charles F. Stone, Thomas Curley, Philip 
Jones. 

Reception : Nathaniel P. Banks, Charles F. Stone, Timothy Leary, 
Frederick A. Stearns, John L. Keyser. 

Tickets : A. W. Sherman, J. P. Murphy, G. A. Smythe, L. C. Lane, 
H. C. Hall. 

The sum of $ioo was appropriated for hall decorations at 
other meetings of the committee, and two o'clock P. M. as the 
hour for commencing the exercises in the hall. Rev. T. F. 
Fales was selected to invoke the Divine blessing, and Rev. Tim- 
othy Brosnahan to pronounce the benediction. The price for 
tickets for the banquet and ball was fixed at $1.25 each. The 
American Watch Company Band was reported as volunteering 
its services for the celebration. The following programme was 
adopted. 

Overture ; Prayer ; Vocal Music ; Instrumental Music ; Historical 
Address ; Vocal Music ; Poem ; Instrumental Music ; Original Hymn ; 
Singing, America, all present joining ; Benediction. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE. I I 

At the final meeting of the Committee prior to the celebra- 
tion, held January 13th, reports from sub-committees were 
made. Rev. T. F. Fales had consented to offer the opening 
prayer and Rev. E. F. Hayward to write the poem. Mr. Wil- 
liam Morton Fullerton had written a hymn for the occasion, 
which was in the hands of the Music Committee. It was de- 
cided to have the church bells rung at i o'clock, and a Gov- 
ernor's salute fired from a section of a battery on the Common, 
on the arrival of Gov. Ames. A committee was appointed to 
secure the co-operation of the store-keepers by closing their 
stores from 2 to 5 o'clock F. M., on the day of the celebration. 
It was also voted to request the different clergymen to give 
notice of the exercises from their several pulpits on Sunday. 



THE CELEBRATION. 

The festivities commenced at one o'clock on the afternoon of 
Monday, January i6th, 1888, with the ringing of the church 
and factory bells. On the arrival of Gov. Ames, who left Bos- 
ton at 12.30 P. M., by way of the Fitchburg railroad, and was 
accompanied by his staff, a governor's salute was fired from a 
cannon stationed on the Common. 

Music Hall had been beautifully decorated from the outer 
doors of the corridors to the extremities of the galleries, under 
the direction of Lamprell & Marble of Boston, and never pre- 
sented so attractive an appearance. In the corridors festoons 
of bunting hung from every available point. Within the hall 
the stage was decorated with potted plants, and along the front 
of it was draped lace over a back-ground of delicate blue. 
Over the centre of the stage was a shield on which was painted 
a representation of the city seal, and radiating from it were 
flags. Over the shield bunting was festooned to the sides of 
the proscenium arch. The walls flanking the stage were also 
appropriately decorated. On the left, as one faced the stage, 
was the legend, 

"INCORPORATED A TOWN, 1738." 



H SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Below it were draped British flags, symbolical of the colonial 
days, and surmounting it was a shield bearing the arms and 
motto of the Prince of Wales. On the right of the stage open- 
ing was a second motto, 

"INCORPORATED A CITY, 1884." 

Over this was the shield of the United States and beneath it 
were draped American flags. 

The fronts of the side galleries were handsomely trimmed 
with a back-ground of lace over a pale pink. In the centre, on 
the right, was a shield bearing the State arms of Massachusetts ; 
in the centre on the left, was another shield, bearing the Nation- 
al arms. On both sides of these centers were placed at regular 
intervals plaques with United States shields, alternating with 
some design typical of agriculture or manufactures. 

On the front of the center gallery was the legend, 

"150th ANNIVERSARY," 

flanked by the English flag on one side and the American flag 
on the other, and, beyond both, shields. Streamers were fes- 
tooned from the center pieces. The gallery walls were hung 
with bunting, and flags served as curtains to the windows. The 
wall at the back of the gallery bore two large plaques, one 
showing the blossom of the cotton plant, the other the boll. 
The side walls were further adorned with six large shields, bear- 
ing the coats of arms of the New England states, Massachusetts, 
Maine and New Hampshire on the left, Vermont, Rhode Island 
and Connecticut on the right, with shields alternating. 

The national flag floated from the staff" on the Common. 

The stage was occupied by ihe guests, the general committee, 



THE PROCEEDINGS. I 5 

members of the city government, resident clergymen and the 
singers. The guests included Gov. Ames and Adj. -Gen. Dal- 
ton, Col. A. M. Shepard, Col. A. L. Newman, Col. Charles 
Weil and Col. R. F. Barrett, of the Governor's staff"; the orator 
of the day, Hon. Frederick M. Stone; Rev. Edward F. Hay- 
ward, the poet of the day; William Morton Fullerton, author 
of the hymn ; Capt. Nathan Appleton of Boston ; Henry B. 
Peirce, Secretary of State; Hon. J. W. Kimball, Mayor of 
Newton ; Hon. E. R. Hoar of Concord ; Francis Lowell ; Pat- 
rick Tracy Jackson, Sr. ; Patrick Tracy Jackson, Jr. ; Hiram 
Skinner, Esq., Charles Brigham, Esq., and E. F. Porter, Esq., 
Selectmen of Watertown ; William Hobbs, Jr., of Brookline ; 
and George Hobbs. 

The exercises were introduced by an overture played by the 
American Watch Company Band, Thomas H. Rollinson, director, 
after which Rev. Thomas ¥. Fales, rector of Christ (Episcopal) 
Church, invoked the Divine blessing. 'Tnteger Vitae" was then 
sung by a chorus of male voices, composed of Messrs. Freder- 
ick A. Stearns, Joseph F. Gibbs, John D. Oliver, Harry D. 
Young, Harry F. Gibbs, Merrick L. Richardson, Charles F. 
Allen, Frank J. Rutter, Dexter H. Hawley, Joseph R. Worces- 
ter, Benjamin B. Sewall and G. Louis Olney, Mr. Clarence E. 
Reed accompanying on the piano. 

At the conclusion of these opening exercises, Hon. Henry N. 
Fisher, Mayor, and President of the Day, spoke substantially 
as follows : 

To me is assigned the duty of extending to each and all, in behalf of 
the city, a cordial welcome to this, the one hundred and fiftieth anni- 
versary of the incorporation of the Town of Waltham. Among the 
many pleasant features of this celebration, none are more gratifying 
than the hearty expressions of good will received from those who, in 



1 6 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

by-gone years, were residents of the town, but who, for various reasons, 
are unable to meet with us to-day. While we should gladly greet them, 
and though their absence is a source of keen regret, we yet rejoice that 
there are so many who have availed themselves of this opportunity to 
revive old associations and renew old friendships, and whose presence 
at this time indicates their continued interest in matters pertaining to 
the welfare of our city. 

The past history of Waltham is already recorded ; what its future 
shall be depends on the interest manifested by the citizens generally in 
public affairs. A change from town to city, under a charter radically 
different from any in this section of the country, was an experiment 
which has been watched with much interest, not only in towns whose 
citizens intend in the near future to change their form of government, 
but also by those who seek to remedy defects existing under a two- 
board form. 

An experience of three years tends to strengthen the conviction that 
our mode of legislation is not only more simple, but is calculated to 
ensure careful consideration of and intelligent action upon the various 
subjects presented. Though we may take pardonable pride in recent 
public improvements, we should not shut our eyes to the fact that much 
remains to be done. It is difficult to make the general public realize 
the rapidity with which the city is growing. During the past year 
nearly two hundred buildings have been erected, and, on each side of 
the river, approach nearer and nearer our western boundary. 

To adequately provide for this and encourage future growth, involves 
a judicious expenditure of money, which will, however, be amply com- 
pensated for in the future by large accessions of taxable property, and 
the increased comfort and happiness of all. 

At the close of the address the band played another selection. 
Mayor Fisher then presented, as the Orator of the Day, Hon. 
Frederick M. Stone. Mr. Stone, in rising to deliver the address, 
said by way of preliminary remarks : 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 1/ 

It is according to a worthy custom prevailing in our older New Eng- 
land towns, that the inhabitants assemble, on appropriate occasions, in 
a public meeting, there to commemorate the notable events in their 
municipal history. And that our regard for the welfare of our own 
community may be revived, and the duties and responsibilities of citi- 
zenship more fully appreciated, it is profitable to review the examples 
of patriotism, wisdom and persevering energy shown by our valorous 
predecessors, as, in colonial and revolutionary times, through years of 
many hardships and comparatively small possessions, they laid the 
foundation of civil government to accord with those opinions which 
they, in advance of all others held, relative to the rights of the people 
and the just purposes of government. And so we meet to-day to cele- 
brate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of 
the Town and to take such note as we may of the lives and work of 
those who have preceded us, and of conditions long since passed, much 
of the history of which has seemingly been neglected and is now traced 
only with great difficulty. 

Quite recently, in the month of December, at the suggestion of the 
City government, a meeting of citizens was held, to indicate some ap- 
propriate action for this occasion, which resulted in the appointment 
of a committee of thirty persons. That committee, disappointed in 
their effort to secure the service of one of our townsmen, eminently 
qualified to address you upon all matters pertinent to the occasion, but 
who, because of the brief time permitted for suitable preparation and 
pressure of official duties, felt obliged to decline ; so late as the 24th of 
December, selected a sub-committee of three of their number, Messrs. 
Charles F. Stone, Nathan Warren and Thomas H. Armstrong, and 
charged them with the duty of preparing an historical memoir to be 
submitted at this meeting. That duty they have performed faithfully 
and well, but it is due to them to say that in the limited time at their 
command they have not attempted to prepare a continuous history. 
They state such pertinent facts as they have been able to obtain which 
serve to outline a portion of our history in colonial, revolutionary and 



I 8 SES(^UT-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

more recent times. The report of this committee has been handed to 
me, with the request that I would present it here. Aid in their labor, so 
light as that, I can hardly decline, and I at once proceed to the 
reading. 

The sub-committee appointed at a meeting of the general committee 
of thirty citizens of Waltham, held December 24th, 1887, to prepare an 
historical memoir for the occasion of the celebration of the one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Waltham, 
offer the following sketch with many misgivings. Necessarily it has been 
prepared in haste and lacks the completeness which can be attained only 
by careful examination of records, writings and traditions, relating to 
the past. We hope, however, that, crude as it is, it may serve to 
awaken more interest in our local history and lead others to search and 
bring forth from sources now imperfectly explored, many facts of great 
interest relating to the times and events we have but touched upon. 
Then shall "the memory of the just smell sweet and blossom in the 
dust." 

The authentic history of Waltham commences with the settlement of 
Watertown by sir Richard Saltonstall and his company in the year 1630. 
Early adventurers from the old world had established trading and 
fishing stations along the coast of New England during the i)receding 
century, but all those ventures, the outgrowth of a spirit of speculation, 
and supported only as a means of money-making, had their brief day 
and passed away, leaving no annal to show that they ever existed as 
communities. Their memory is preserved only in the vague descrip- 
tions by early explorers, so glossed with fabulous stories of their wealth 
and importance as almost to discredit their statements. Recent inves- 
tigations made by a gentleman,^ whose eminence as a scholar commands 
respect for his opinion, have resulted in his locating the site of the 
most tamous of all these early settlements, the Lost City of the new 
world, Norumbega, upon the border of our City of Waltham ; so that 
the imagination may picture the river Charles flowing through this 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 



19 



plain, one of the chief highways of commerce between the old and new 
worlds, a century before the settlement of our country by white men. 

Prior, however, to the time when Sir Richard with his Company of 
Planters went up Charles River "about four miles to a place well 




NORUMDEGA TOWER. FROM THE ORIGINAL SKETCH. 

watered,"- and settled the plantation which has grown into three large 
and prosperous municipalities, there is but one known record extant 
that relates to the territory now included within our city. Within a 



20 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

week after his arrival at Salem, on June 17, 1630, Gov. Winthrop, with 
a small party, dissatisfied with Salem as "a place for sitting down," 
searched up the rivers for a convenient place and, in the words of 
Lieut. Gov. Dudley, "found a place liked us better three leagues upp 
Charles River." ^ Palfrey locates this as very likely to have been near 
the mouth of Stony Brook. But as those early voyagers would be little 
likely to underestimate distances, and as no one would probably pass 
this delightful plain to select for settlement any place that can be shown 
farther up the river, we may fairly claim that the spot which met the 
approval of Winthrop was the fertile plain, just three leagues from the 
mouth of the river, in later years known from the natural charm of its 
situation as "Eden Vale," and in the very center of our city. 

The Company shipped their goods from Salem to Charlestown, and 
then finding that, owing to the sickness of many of the Company, they 
could not carry their ordinance and baggage so far as three leagues up 
the river, they were forced to change their intention and disperse, por- 
tions settling at various points near the mouths of the rivers that empty 
into the bay ; Sir Richard Saltonstall and his company settling near 
Mount Auburn and founding the town of Watertown from which Wal- 
tham sprung. 

But for the circumstance of fever and scurvy in the Company, no 
doubt the Governor and his entire company of seven hundred persons, 
who in fact settled Boston, Medford, Roxbury, Saugus and Watertown, 
would have formed one community in this grand old town, naming it 
Boston ("as they intended to have done the place they first resolved 
on"). 

The story of the settlement of Watertown is a familiar one. For our 
present purpose a brief sketch only will be attempted of that portion 
which relates specially to the section afterwards set off to form the new 
town of Waltham. 

The pioneers had settled near tide-water at the extreme eastern part 
of the township. They were not refuges from religious or political per- 
secution, nor yet adventurers seeking fortunes with the view to return 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 21 

to England to live, when their venture had met with success. They 
were staid and earnest men, many of them of ample worldly means and 
good social position at home, who had become infected with the fever 
that at that period swept Western Europe and founded the colonies in 
the new world. The movement in the Colonial period from the west of 
Europe to the new world may be classed with those strange migrations 
of races that have periodically swept, always from east to west, over the 
civilized part of the world. These men came on no trivial errand ; 
they came to found a nation. In obedience to the Divine command 
they went forth to increase and multiply and replenish and subdue the 
earth. What they did and what they suffered for the first four years of 
their existence as a town we cannot learn, for no records are to be 
found earlier than 1634. It seems, however, that they went at once 
about the business of establishing the town by allotting to each man 
land for a home, or homestall, as the earliest grants are called. 

Precisely how these freemen acquired their rights in the lands, and 
by what title they held and granted them, we are unable to state, but 
in the letter of advice from Gov. Craddock and his council in England 
to Gov. Endicott, 1629, they say, "wee have further taken into o'r con- 
sideration the fitness and convenience or rather a necessity of making 
a dividend of land and allotting a p'porcon to each adventurer," and 
they send a list of adventurers with the amount each had advanced in 
the enterprise, and recommended that even the servants receive an 
allotment of land. 

This was generous, indeed, but the company could afford to be liber- 
al. With a royal grant of all the land between lines three miles north 
of the Merrimac and three miles south of the Charles, and extending 
from the Atlantic to the Western Ocean, they had land enough, and as 
their profits were to come from the commerce which they expected 
would spring up with the Colony, a free and liberal course, that would 
encourage those already here to stay, and others to join them, was a 
matter of policy. 

During the first five years of the life of the town the only event that 



22 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

especially concerns this section was the expedition of Gov. Winthrop 
and a party up Charles River about eight miles above Watertown, 
probably on foot and for the purpose of laying out a public road. This 
was undoubtedly the beginning of our Main Street. On this expedition 
were given the names that remain to-day designating Beaver Brook, 
Masters Brook and Mt. P^ake. 

In 1635, the settlement having largely increased in numbers, and 
nearly all the land east of Waltham's present line being allotted out for 
homestalls, the inhabitants began to look to the reclaiming of the wild 
lands lying further west. With the exception of a few grants made by 
the General Court, the lands of the town were granted and allotted by 
the freemen under authority of law.* * The first grant within our bor- 
ders was by the Court, April ist, 1634, to Mr. John Oldham, of five 
hundred acres lying near Mount Feake on the northwest of Charles 
River. John Oldham, thus the first private owner of land in Waltham, 
was a man of great ability and large means. He had been a resident 
in the Plymouth Colony, occupying a seat in the Governor's Council, 
and receiving in a general allotment of land the largest grant of any 
man, not excepting the governor, but after one year's stay he was ban- 
ished, with orders to depart immediately and never to return. He 
appeared in England in 1629, owning with John Dorrell a patent to a 
tract of land purchased of John Gorges and lying between the Charles 
and Saugus Rivers, which he vainly endeavored to sell to the Massa- 
chusetts Company. Failing in this he sailed for America to take pos- 
session of his land. Gov. Craddock, in his letter of instruction to Gov. 
Endicott at Salem, anticipating trouble from Oldham's claim, described 
his character in very uncomplimentary terms, and warning him of the 
difficulty in dealing with such a man, advises the immediate possession 
of the lands by Massachusetts men. The warning seems to have been 
unnecessary, for we find Mr. Oldham at once high in the councils of 
the infant town, and trusted by the Court. Why he received the grant 

* See Colonial Laws, Boston reprint, 195. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 23 

of this five hundred acres has not lieen discovered. He never lived on 
the farm. He was killed by the Indians in 1636, and his tragic death 
was the immediate cause of the famous Pequod war. There is no rea- 
son to believe that the first owner of Waltham lands was other than a 
frank, high-minded, energetic man, whose devotion to the Church of 
England was the sole cause of his disfavor. His farm, long known as 
the Oldham Farm, later as the Dummer Farm, extended from Stony 
Brook on the west to a point east of Harvard street, bordering all the 
way on the river. This was the only Court grant in Waltham. Part of 
it is now the City Farm. 

The first grant by the freemen was that of the Great Dividends, July 
25, 1636.*^ This included all of the town lying between Lexington line 
and a parallel line two miles southwest from it. This southwest border 
was Main street from VVatertown line nearly to Beaver Brook, and 
thence, in the same course, past the north side of Lily Pond and over 
the southern summit of Prospect Hill. This land was allotted in four 
belts, each half a mile wide, the dividing lines being those so often 
named in old records as squadron lines ; and each belt was subdivided 
by cross lines into lots varying from fifteen to one hundred acres each, 
there being one hundred and twenty of such lots. The next grant was 
the "Beaver Brook Plowlands," including nearly all the land between 
the Great Dividends and the river, as far west as the Oldham Farm, 
nearly, if not tpite, to the head of the Plain. These lots were small, 
most of them being less than seven acres, and were therefore quite 
narrow, and it is probable that few, if any, of them were ever fenced as 
originally granted. The third and last general grant of Waltham lands 
was that of the "Lieu of Township Lots," July 17, 1638. These em- 
braced all the land west of the (ireat Plain and south of the Dividends 
and extended beyond Stony Brook. There were no other general 
allotments of lands, although the meadows in the town were excepted 
from the grants of Great Dividends and were granted in small lots at 
various times. 

It is probable that for several years our portion of Watertown vv as 



24 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIOxN. 

uninhabited, serving as woodland and pasturage for the owners who 
resided on their homestalls at the east end. Just when owners of lands 
here began to dwell upon them is difficult to discover, but as early as 
1643, John Page mortgaged to Tho. Crosby a dwelling house and sixty 
acres of land near Beaver Brook. It is doubtful, however, if settlement 
extended west of Beaver Brook within Waltham bounds until much 
later, for April 10, 1669, much complaint being made that cattle are not 
properly "bearded," it was ordered, "That there shall be but three 
heards kept in the town," and ranges were allotted ; for the first, "the 
river on the south, and Prospect Hill (called Knop's Garden) on the 
north ;" the second, from the south side of Prospect Hill to the south 
side of the Great Pond ; and the third, from the south side of the Great 
Pond to Cambridge (Lexington) line. In the following year new 
ranges were established, four in number, the first from Bear Hill to the 
river, and not to come upon the lands called the Great Dividends ; the 
second was between Bear Hill and the path that goes to the White 
Horse ; the third extended north to the middle of the Great Fresh 
Pond ; and the fourth was to feed Mackerell Hill and all the lands be- 
tween the middle of the Fresh Pond and Cambridge bounds. It is 
probable, therefore, that most, if not all, the lands between Beaver and 
Stony Brooks remained for forty years after the settlement, unfenced 
and common land, although allotted in parcels to different owners. 

The prominent hills of the town. Mount Feake, Prospect, Bear and 
Mackerell Hills, seem to have early received the names they still bear. 
Why Prospect should be called Knop's Garden, and where the White 
Horse Meadow was, some future investigator must determine. 

From the latter part of the 17th century to the incorporation of Wal- 
tham, there is little of interest or importance in the town records ex- 
cept the almost constant dissension between the eastern and western 
sections of the town. The early cause of difference was the location of 
the meeting house. Dwellers in the western portion, then the most 
rapidly growing section, compelled by the imposition of church rates to 
share in the expense of maintaining public worship, felt it a grievous 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 2$ 

burden that they were obliged to travel to the extreme eastern part of 
the town to attend church, and many of them, in fact, attended church 
in Sudbury and elsewhere. Year after year the proposal to move the 
meeting house further west, so as to accommodate the farmers, was de- 
bated in town meeting, and when at last the measure was carried, which 
resulted in building a new meeting house at the corner of Belmont and 
Lexington Streets in Watertown, just south of the present village of 
Waverley, the cause of dissension was not removed, but merely changed 
from the location of the meeting house to the settlement of the minister. 
In this, the western section again prevailed. Rev. Samuel Angler was 
called to preach in the new meeting house and was elected by the town 
and for several months was the only minister in town, and his church, 
later removed into the bounds of Waltham, was the direct successor of 
the First Church in Watertown. 

Weston, for several years a separate ministerial precinct, was set off 
as a distinct town January 12th, 1713, and again we find the familiar 
record of disagreement between the eastern and western portions of the 
remaining town, concerning the location of the meeting house. The 
General Court was petitioned for relief, and a resolve was passed "for 
the support of the ministry in the diverse congregations." But at a 
meeting called to act upon that resolve, May 12, 1 713, only three or 
four hands were shown in favor of dividing the town. This question, 
however, continued the chief cause of contention in the town until set- 
tled by the establishment of the Western Precinct, by order of the 
General Court, November 2, 1720 O. S.'' 

From this date our record as a distinct municipal body commences. 
The location of the meeting house was at once settled by the selection 
of a site near the corner of Beaver and Lyman streets, and the erection 
there of the first church in Waltham. 

The question of the ministry being settled, the people of the West 
Precinct next began to demand better school accommodations, and 
again year after year the record shows the failure of all proposed meas- 
ures for relief. Scarcely a town meeting was held without some action 



26 SES(^UI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

under an article in the warrant, "to see if the town would grant money 
for the encouragement of learning in the West Precinct." Two of the 
assessors, William Brown and Nathaniel Harris, refused to levy the 
school tax upon the inhabitants of the West Precinct, and were prose- 
cuted for neglect of duty. Petition for relief was made to the General 
Court in this matter also, and a resolution of the House of Representa- 
tives was obtained recommending "that the town have two school 
houses and two masters, of which each Precinct to have one." 

Mr. Allen Flagg, being present at a Precinct meeting April 9, 1729, 
where choice was to be made of a location for a school house, offered 
to give land for the purpose near the north end of his orchard. His 
offer was accepted, and at a town meeting January 18, 1733, the town 
voted "to fix upon the place of ground between old Deacon Sanderson's 
and Mr. Allen Flagg's, near Hosier's Corner, to be the place to build a 
school house on for the West Precinct," and the first school house 
was erected at that point, now better known as "Piety Corner." '^ 

'I'his disposed of the school question for the time, but harmony was 
not yet restored between the Precincts. The next moving cause of 
dissension was that of the highways. There appeared to be an unwil- 
lingness on the part of the town to establish in the West Precinct the 
public ways demanded by the growth of that section, and this seems to 
have been the rock upon which the town split. Unlike the former cases, 
when the desire on the part of the West Precinct for a division of the 
town was vigorously opposed by the East Precinct, upon this occasion 
the two sections seem to have acted in harmony. It was an agreement 
to disagree. In December, 1737, both Precincts adopted a resolution 
substantially in the same form, by which, after a preamble that "Where- 
as an unhappy controversy has arisen and for some time subsisted 
amcmg the inhabitants of said town. Respecting the Public and Private 
ways that are in the Towns to the peaceable desition whereof it is 
thought deviding of the Town of Watertown into two Townships may 
be very conducive, In order therefore to secure so valuable a blessing 
as Peace," it was voted to apply to the General Court for the dividing 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 



27 



of the town. The matter was not allowed to cool, and on the fourth day 
of January, 1737, Old Style, (January 15, 1738, New Style,) the act 
was passed and took effect, creating the West Precinct of Watertown 
into the Town of VValtham. 

The territory thus set off to constitute the new town has been twice 




THE GOV. CORE ESTATE. 



enlarged, once, in March, 1755, by the addition of the small tract, the 
Bridge's farm, which projects from our northeast border into the town 
of Lexington, and again in 1849, when the portion south of Charles 
River was set off to us from the town of Newton. A portion of our 
territory was also taken from us in 1859, to form a part of the town 
of Belmont. 



28 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

By the act of incorporation, Waltham attained an individuality of her 
own among the one hundred and forty-five towns of the Commonwealth.^ 
From an indefinite fraction, it became a unit in our political system. 
It entered upon history as a separate municipality, and it is in this new 
relation that we engage in the celebration to-day. When we contem- 
plate her entrance among the towns of New England we are impressed 
with the significance of the event. For in New England the word town 
implied more than it did in other parts of the country. The town gov- 
ernment, maintaining its separate and distinct organization and charac- 
teristics, is one of our peculiar institutions, and its effect upon the 
people has been such as to inspire the highest impulses of both local 
and patriotic devotion, and insure the greatest amount of personal lib- 
erty consistent with the proper execution of law. The town has 
been called an incorporated republic. It represents the simplest and 
purest form of democracy in the world. In the town meeting every 
voter is a legislator, free to express himself on any subject of municipal 
affairs, and through the will of the majority imposes his own taxes and 
makes the local laws and establishes the regulations which are to gov- 
ern his intercourse with the community in which he lives. It was to 
the people of the towns as represented in their town meetings, rather 
than to the mass of the people of New England, that we owe the mani- 
festation of the spirit of liberty, of resistance to unjust taxation and 
oppression, that led immediately to the Revolution. The town meet- 
ing aforded a medium of communication and an opportunity for free 
interchange of opinion and concett of action which in those days could 
not be otherwise supplied. De Tocqueville, one of the most intelligent 
critics upon our system of government, says : "Town meetings are 
to liberty what primary schools are to science ; they bring it within the 
people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. The 
native of New England is attached to his township because it is inde- 
pendent and free : his co-operation in its affairs insures his attachment 
to its interest ; thewell being it affords him secures his affection ; and 
its welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his future exertions. He 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 29 

takes part in every occurrence in the place ; he practices the art of 
government in the small sphere within his reach ; he accustoms him 
self to their forms, without which liberty can only advance by revolu- 
tions ; he imbibes their spirit ; he acquires a taste for order, compre- 
hends the balance of powers, and collects clear, practical notions in the 
nature of his duties and the extent of his rights " 

It is in this new character of an incorporated town, having success- 
fully passed through the trials and difficulties of separation, that from 
the standpoint of one hundred and fifty years ago we survey the com- 
mencement of its growth and trace its history and development. 

Let us pause, and view in retrospect, if we may, the situation of affairs 
at that time, and the environment of the town and its people, in con- 
nection with the other parts of the colonies. Waltham then had about 
ninety scattered farm-houses, with no well defined village or centre of 
population. The nearest approach to a village was between Pleasant 
Street and Beaver Brook, where there was a hotel and a few houses. 
The single church of the town was near the Lyman Place, standing 
quite isolated. What is now the thickly populated part of our busy 
city, was then unoccupied areas of land given up to pasturage, agri- 
culture and forest growth. Between Pleasant Street and Skunk, or 
Mixer's, Lane, now Bacon Street, there were but two or three houses, 
and not a public road or thoroughfare broke the lines of the fields on 
the north ; while on the south there was about the same number of 
houses, and a single driveway, now Moody Street, led down to the 
river. Yet Main Street, then called the Sudbury Road, was a great 
thoroughfare of traffic and communication for those days, and was one 
of the main arteries of travel in the colony from Boston to the interior 
and western towns. Consequently there were a number of taverns for 
the entertainment of man and beast.^ These doubtless furnished the 
centres for news and gossip and were the scenes of the characteristic 
life and excitement inseparable from the country inn of the olden times 
and the traditions that have been celebrated in prose and poetry. 
Waltham Plain, well known in local nomenclature in all the country 



30 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

around, was simply a broad tract of land intersected by a wide and 
straight country road. Could we by magic reproduce a picture or pho- 
tograph of the aspect of the town at this date, doubtless all of us would 
fail to recognize a single locality in the scene. The whole landscape 
has undergone a transformation which would render the most familiar 
locations of to-day unfamiliar. The beautiful Charles River pursued 
its winding way along the southern border of the town, its current un- 
spanned by a single bridge, and its waters unvexed by a single mill- 
wheel within our limits. Even the majestic hills which encompass the 
Plain, with the changes at their base and in their surroundings, would 
not be easily recognized objects in the landscape. 

The streets of the town were few. Pleasant Street was a forest road 
extending to the gate of the Lyman estate, thence following west along 
the present Beaver Street to Piety Corner, and by Winter Street to Lin- 
coln. One branch took the course of Lincoln Street to the hills, and 
another went by way of Lexington Street around by the old College 
Farm, later the Hardy place. The Trapelo road extended from Clem- 
atis Brook to Hardy's Pond, where it stopped. From the church east- 
ward, Beaver Street extended to the Watertown line ; and Pigeon Lane 
went from the gateway of S. D. Warren's estate over Pigeon Hill to 
Trapelo. Warren Street was substantially as it is to-day. Main Street 
extended to Stony Brook, with a fork in the road near the present old 
tavern i" on the hill leading to Bear Hill and beyond ; Prospect Lane 
was over the hill as at present, and South Street extended about to the 
Cemetery gate. 

Skunk Lane led to Piety Corner and is often recorded as the way to 
the school house. Where now Harvard Street is located Brown's Lane 
ran to the fields adjacent to Mt. Feake. Grove Street was known as 
the back road to Watertown. 

Not a house then standing is in existence to-day. The old malt 
house on the Jonas Clark place, destroyed during the past year, was the 
only building supposed to have been a witness to the incorporation. 
A few oak and elm trees, notably the oak on the recent addition to the 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 3 I 

Common,ii whose branches have been swept by the storms of a century 
and a half, stand as landmarks of the time and place. 

The social, political and financial strength of the town lay in the 
northern part. The farmers of Trapelo and Pond End came over to 
the town meetings in the old church, and both by intellectual and nu- 
merical force managed the public affairs. At this time they furnished 
the most prominent town officers and representatives, and administered 
the government with firmness and good judgment. Though the town 
has grown so extensively in other directions, the people have always 
recognized the inherent qualities of the early fathers in calling their 
descendants from the same districts into places of honor and trust. 
The sterling qualities and intelligence of our early residents are evinced 
in their acts ; and the names of Wellington, Smith, Lawrence, Stearns, 
Clark, Childs, Sanderson, Fisk and Livermore, are represented among 
our citizens of to-day. 

Religion throughout the colonies had lost much of its rigid austerity 
and intolerant character on the part of the people. The banishment 
of the Antinomians, and the persecution of the Quakers, had left their 
stain on the colony, but the people of 1738 knew of these acts only by 
hearsay and the severe annals of history. Though the intolerant zeal 
of their fathers had never been atoned for, still, it had been practically 
discountenanced by a more generous and intelligent spirit. The witch- 
craft delusion had lived its fitful life and left naught but a stinging 
memory as an inheritance. Persecutors and victims were in their 
graves and had long since rendered their accounts at the bar of eternal 
judgment. But still the church ruled in secular as well as in religious 
affairs. Its interests were interwoven with the social and material wel- 
fare of the whole community. Its potent influence permeated every 
walk of life. To the meeting house, on every Sabbath day, flocked the 
greater part of the families of every town. There, within the blank, 
cheerless walls, and on the hard, uncomfortable seats, they sat through 
the long service, which sometimes extended through three or four 
hours ^-. The men, and women, and boys sat apart, the latter often on 



32 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the pulpit or gallery stairs. The deacons sat in front, facing the con- 
gregation, while the sexton turned the hour-glass as the sands were 
exhausted during the pastor's exemplification of the different heads of 
his long sermon. The tithing-man attended in all the dignity and 
severity of his office, ever and anon with his rod stirring up the small 
boy who, with the characteristics of his genus in all generations, might 
be inclined to roguery or inattention, even within the sacred precincts 
and solemn surroundings of the Puritan church ; or perhaps nudging 
some adult who was nodding under the soporific effects of a long drawn- 
out discourse on the disputed questions of the theology of the day. 
Those from a distance often brought their dinners and staid over for 
the afternoon service. The interim of nooning gave possibly a favorable 
opportunity for exchange of gossip among the women, and perhaps for 
a conditional trade among the men, to be consummated some week 
day. But it gave also an opportunity for the neighborly greetings, 
local friendships and sympathetic interest in each other's welfare which 
have made New England manhood and womanhood a goodly inher- 
itance of our race. With an abiding faith in an overruling Providence 
our ancestors inculcated the precepts of the Scriptures, as interpreted 
by them, in their civil government. They laid its foundations on the 
principles of religion. The cause of civil liberty was identified with the 
cause of religion. Their fervid zeal and recognition of Divine power 
ensured the blessings we enjoy to-day. 

It was at this period that what is called the "great awakening" took 
place. Edwards, as one of the first great theologians of this country, 
was impressing his views of Divine subjects upon the people and mak- 
ing earnest and vehement presentation of Calvanistic doctrine, while 
Whitefield, recently arrived from England and making a tour ot the 
colonies, was exerting his wonderful magic influence in quickening re- 
ligious zeal. Opposing dogmas of faith, with a more liberal interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures and a growing independence among the people 
on sectarian matters, gave rise to acrimonious discussions and heated 
controversies, and aroused a lively interest throughout the country. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 33 

In political affiiirs the Colony was advancing in that development 
which was sometime to culminate in a struggle with the mother country. 
Jonathan Belcher was Governor, an appointee of the Crown, and though 
born in this country, became a firm supporter of the high prerogative 
of the government. There was no thought among the colonists of 
aught but devotion and attachment to England No subjects were 
more loyal. No soldiers served with more valor, patience and enthu- 
siasm than those of the colonies in the French and Indian and Colonial 
wars, which were from time to time waged with such ferocity. The 
colonists still regarded England as their old home. George the Second 
was King, and Walpole was at the head of the ministry, hastening to his 
fall, which was to close a remarkable period of office. Every act of the 
home government was reviewed with interest by the colonists, who 
instinctively felt that their welfare was linked with that of the kingdom. 
But they were jealous of any infringement of their rights of local man- 
agement of affairs, and even then bitter controversies were arising 
between the Governor and General Court on many questions of local 
government, which were eventually to be settled only by war and abso- 
lute separation. Already had Montesquieu, with that far-reaching 
foresight which has marked him as one of the greatest statesmen, ob- 
served that in the forests of America was arising a people who would 
ultimately become a nation and shake off the trammels which bound 
them to any other government. 

In financial matters the people were suffering from a debased paper 
currency, which embarrassed trade and entailed great losses. There 
were the old and new tenor, representing respectively the early and 
latest emissions of paper money, and passing in a ratio of three or 
four to one. Thus in nearly all transactions and payments of the day, 
we note the stipulations of old and new tenor. 

Slavery existed, though to a limited extent, and we may occa- 
sionally note the sale of a servant or some quaint observation upon the 
disposition of such a chattel in a will. 

Social amusements went little beyond the neighborhood gathering, or 



34 SES(^UI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

simple party, or perhaps a dance at the country tavern. What we es- 
teem the graces and pleasures of life drew the mind and heart but little 
from the stern, practical realities and the prosaic routine of daily occu- 
pations. Yet it was not, perhaps, inclination which induced our ances- 
tors to forego the amenities of life, so much as want of opportunity, for 
we have ample record that the younger portion of the community loved 
to indulge in the characteristic pleasures of the day. Human nature 
would display itself, despite the conscientious scruples imposed by a 
faith and worship whose rigid principles could not repress a love of 
sentiment and the lightsome and cheery expression of feelings which 
may illumine the most sedate existence. 

In literature our date is contemporary with Pope, Swift, De Foe and 
Richardson in England, and with Edwards and Franklin in our own 
land. But there was little variety in the reading matter furnished to 
old or young. The latter learned for religious instruction and discipline 
the Assembly's Catechism, and had little play given to their imagina- 
tions. The older people confined their reading to psalms and books 
upon divinity. Novels had no place in their households. Reading was 
a serious business. In the inventories of private libraries it is interest- 
ing and curious to note the religious commentaries and works upon di- 
vinity, without one ray of the light of poetry or fiction, or descriptive 
reading, although works which are justly admired to-day were then ex- 
tant. But the constant reading and re-reading of these works incul- 
cated a sententious style and purity of diction and concise vocabulary 
of words which are displayed through the private writings and utter- 
ances of even those whose ways of life seldom called into exercise any 
talent for formal expression of thought. When in after years, prior to 
the revolution, the letters and remonstrances from our towns, and the 
public utterances of our farming communities, went forth to the world, 
they attracted the special attention of such men as Burke and Pitt in 
the British Parliament, for their clear and incisive English, their purity 
of style and aptitude of expression. 

The modes of conveyance were still of the primitive kind. Pleasure 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 35 

carriages were kw and were mostly maintained by the wealthy in the 
large towns. The pillion served for conveyance of persons over the 
rough roads, while the ox team was in general use for carrying loads. 
Even sleighs were not generally used, a rustic sled being the common 
vehicle over the snow. 

Dress, always undergoing the eccentricities of fashion, was conserva- 
tive in its style. Homespun, woven and dyed by the housewife, was 
the common material, but the showy cloths, laces, and gold and silver 
braids for both men and women, brought from Europe, were much af- 
fected by those who could afford them. Umbrellas were little known 
and were regarded as too effeminate for men either in sunshine or 
storm. 

The increasing cost of funerals on account of the outlay for gloves, 
scarves, spirits and luxuries for show and entertainment, had begun to 
attract attention, and the General Court enacted a law restricting the 
free distribution of such articles to a limited number. Still the people 
continued in some measure to transgress the law and sustain a custom 
which had become excessive and ridiculous in its observance. ^^ 

It is a priceless memory for Massachusetts, that her sons who were 
in active life a little more than a century ago took their stand as they 
did, and met the systematic aggression of England with such heroic 
determination, and such clearness in their comprehension of the mean- 
ing of the struggle for themselves and for us who have succeeded them. 
And though as a commonwealth we can now claim that memory as our 
common inheritance, it is a perpetual source of gratification to know 
that our own little community acted well its part in the contest. We 
cannot yet show the whole of Waltham's share in the war for independ- 
ence, but enough is known to satisfy us that it was patriotic, energetic 
and dignified from the outset. It has been said that the records of our 
town affairs show little concerning the war, and true it is that the votes 
in town meeting and the selectmen's recorded doings, cannot be said 
to form a continuous history of those stirring times. But from such 
records and other sources we can gather enough to give us an outline 



2,^ 



SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



which is decided, and leaves no doubt that later information will only 
round it out. 

Let us briefly contemplate the state of society and the customs of 
that period. Waltham in 1770, in the tenth year of the reign of its 
sovereign Lord, George IIL, was still a little farming settlement, having 
a population of about seven hundred persons, of whom thirteen were 




RESIDENCE OF REV. JACOB GUSHING, D. D. 
Built about 1759. 



slaves. Ninety- three houses then stood on our territory. The princi- 
pal occupation was farming, though (juite a number of the people 
derived their living, directly or indirectly, from ministering to the wants 
of travellers at the six taverns which then stood on Waltham Plains. 
Many stages rolled along our Main street. There was one public gram- 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 



37 



mar school house at Piety Corner, and "moving schools" were kept at 
the houses of residents of more distant parts of the town. There was 
one church ; one shepherd, and one flock. The Rev. Jacob Gushing 
was the pastor. His house still stands on the west side of Pleasant 
street, renovated and apparently in condition to last another half cen- 
tury. From his dwelling, the pastor had but a short distance to walk 
to reach the unpainted wooden "meeting house," by following the way 




THE FIRST (west PRECINCT) CHURCH. 
Destroyed by fire in 1829. 



which then led from the present north end of Pleasant street and in the 
same direction across the brook, then turning to the left, or westward, 
passing close by the site of the Lyman mansion to the church. 

Pastor Cushing's name immediately carries us back to that of his 
father-in-law and predecessor, the Rev. Warham Williams, who, when 
a child, was seized by the French and the northern Indians at their 
terrible attack on Deerfield in February, 1704, and with his father and 



38 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

the other members of his family, transported by cruel marches, at a 
season when the snow lay four feet deep, to Canada. Warham Williams 
saw two of his little brothers or sisters slaughtered at the attack, and 
his mother brutally killed during the march, because she could not 
keep pace with the party. A Bible, saved from their little stock of 
household goods, was read at their night camps. They reach Canada, 
and after a period of captivity all the survivors returned to Massachu- 
setts, except one, the youngest daughter, who, according to Barry, 
married an Indian chief. But at the time of which we are speaking 
the colony had grown strong, and those terrible raids of devastation by 
the French and their Indian allies had ceased within its borders. 

The principal matters acted upon by the freeholders at Town meet- 
ings, were the election of town officers, including some whose occupa- 
tion is now gone, such as the tythingmen and deer reeves. The ''gospel 
minister," as then they styled the pastor, was also called to his office 
by popular vote at town meeting. The Governor was, of course, ready 
made for us, and exercised his office under the royal commission. The 
usual annual grants of money for public purposes were at this time 
about ^200, expended mainly for the minister's salary and his fire- 
wood ; a little "to encourage the singers;" the support of the few poor 
people ; the repairs of the meeting house and the roads ; and a good 
share for the schools. Bounty was paid for the killing of wild animals 
and birds, while we now protect the lives of the latter by stringent laws. 
Wolves, which annoyed the early settlers so seriously, had probably dis- 
appeared, but deer roamed the forests under some protection of law, and 
occasionally a "wild catte" was killed. Seating the meeting house, or 
allotting the thirty-nine pews among the freeholders who paid the 
greatest sums for taxes, was a public matter involving much delibera- 
tion. Several attempts to introduce a stove as means of heating the 
meeting house, met with steady opposition and defeat.^'* The road 
taxes were often settled by personal service. Though the holding of 
slaves at this time was not general, the custom apparently cast no odium 
on the few who practised it. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 39 

Early marriages, large families and industrious life were the rules for 
the time. A simple life, crowned with the satisfaction of duty well 
done, was realized by many, not because they were isolated from temp- 
tation, but because the example of those who came here to found a 
commonwealth "for conscience sake" had not yet lost its impetus, and 
was inherited by tradition and constitution by their descendants, and 
adopted in a measure by new comers. The dusty files of probate 
records permit us to get many glimpses of what some of our old citi- 
zens busied themselves about and how they enjoyed their leisure. Let 
us look at one or two cases. 

Isaac Brown, yeoman, and apparently store-keeper as well, died 
about this time ; the inventory of his personal property includes the 
usual firelock and sword, and one Negro girl named "Vilet," whose 
value the appraisers placed at ;^26 13s 4d. In the list of his shop 
goods, who now knows whether fashion then recognized such goods as 
"garlex," "oznabrigs," "dowless" and "tammy." In the will of John 
Ball, 1 769, he directs "that if my negro man should prove Cross and 
Disobedient to the Commands of my wife I do hereby order that he be 
sold by my Executor." 

Capt. John Cutting's estate, inventory 1760, gives us a sample of the 
style of literature then most enjoyed, for in addition to his "Great Bible" 
and two Small Bibles, his shelves held Dr. Mather's works, "Christ Dying 
a Sacrifice," The Church Platform, Mr. Cooper's Works (probably not 
the works of J. Fennimore Cooper), The Blessed Hope, and "Sundry 
Pamphilets ;" and in the same inventory appears the appraisal of five 
slaves, viz. : Slave Lucy, ;^20 ; Bartholomew, ^20 ; Dinah, ^20 ; 
Ishmael, ^15 ; Thomas, ^^i. ■ Richard Cutting's estate, appraised in 
1767, shows a really learned and liberal taste in reading, for his library 
includes a copy of Virgil, Lock's works, Latin and Greek Testaments, a 
Hebrew grammar, and Greek lexicon ; the mention of his firelock and 
sword, following, as it does, after the library catalogue, perhaps indi- 
cates, even in those dry ashes of the probate registry, how the "wonted 
fires" of old-time citizen Richard Cutting's mind were directed. 



40 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

As we approach closer to the period of the Revolution, we find that 
in the year 1774 the most important local matter which agitated the 
townspeople, was the building of a new school house to accommodate 
the residents of the northwest portion of the town. It is still a tradi- 
dition in that section that at this period the school was kept at the 
house of Mr. Isaac Pierce, and though only three families sent children, 
the roll call of the school had thirty scholars' names upon it. So, after 
many petitions and meetings, and much discussion, it was determined 
to build a new school house on the spot "at the foot of the hills" where 
the present Pond End school now stands. The old school house, which 
then stood west of and near the present junction of Bacon and Lexing- 
ton streets, was taken down, and such portions as could be used, were 
employed in the erection of the new building. Most of the vouchers 
for payments on account of this building are still preserved, and show 
that the ordinary wages of a builder competent to frame and finish a 
building were two shillings and eight pence per day and allowance of 
one shilling per day for board ; for at that rate the committee paid 
David Smith for that service. One John Milliquet, of whom more 
hereafter, rendered his bill for goods furnished the school house build- 
ing committe, as follows : 

i}'2 g^Il- New Eng. Rum at 2s, Z ° 3 o 

2% lb. Sugar, o i 8 

^m. 4d nails, 002 

which was duly satisfied. 

The care of the poor was personally superintended by the selectmen, 
as appears by the following : 

The Selectmen, Nov. iS, 1772 desired Mr. Jona. Hammond one of 
their number to "fill a Barrel with Cyder for Sarah Bemis one of the 
Towns poor," and also desired Mr. Jona. Hammond and Lieut. Elijah 
Livermore, two of the Selectmen, " to go to the house where she lives, 
and see whether she has sufficient Bedding for the Winter." At their next 
meeting Nov. 23d, 1772, "Upon the report of Mr. Jona. Hammond 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 4I 

and Lieut. Elijah Livermore they " ordered the Treasurer to procure 
three pounds of Wool for her to finish a Branket for her, for the Winter 
ensuing ; they likewise desired Mr. Hammond to provide six shillings 
worth of provisions and Drink and deliver to Daniel Pierce and Sarah 
Bemis for Thanksgiving." 

The remains of the dead were brought from remote parts of the 
town for burial, borne upon the shoulders of the bearers, and even as 
late as 1773 the Town refused to purchase a hearse, as prayed for by 
residents of the north part of the town, who were solicitous that this 
laborious though then time honored custom should cease. 

Having thus given some facts tending to show the state of our town 
at the time immediately preceding the Revolution, it is our task to 
ascertain how the greater events which controlled the condition and 
happiness of millions broke in upon this little community, and what its 
part therein was. At this point we must briefly recall the train of 
events which had brought the Massachusetts Bay Colony into such a 
state that an outbreak was imminent. The colony was probably never 
dearer to the heart of the mother country than in 1 763, only twelve 
years before the fights at Lexington and Bunker Hill had marked the 
time, after which there was no alternative but complete and everlasting 
political independence or complete subjection, for at that date Eng- 
land had, after nearly a century of intermittent conflict, succeeded in 
reducing Canada, and had grasped that coveted P'rench Dominion. 

The Colonies had been of great assistance in this struggle, Massa- 
chusetts, especially, at an expense of ^200,000, had captured Louisburg 
and laid the prize at the feet of the King, besides her services in many 
other expeditions. But the English treasury had suffered great loss by 
these wars, and in casting about for ways and means, the ministry could 
not overlook the now prosperous colonies. Boston and Salem owned 
together nearly six hundred vessels, and their trade with the West 
Indies and other foreign countries was large ; the fisheries prosperous, 
and owing to the policy of the home government in repressing manu- 
factures, the exports from England to the Colonies amounted to more 



42 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

than three millions of dollars of our present currency per year. Here 
was a temptation for exaction too great for an unscrupulous ministry to 
withstand, and hence under paltry excuses and under color of every 
reason but the real one, bill after bill was pressed through parliament 
for the taxation of America. Every school-boy can tell us of the most 
noted of these laws, the bill of April, 1764, the Stamp Act of March, 
1765, and what degree of success attended the attempt to put that Act 
into execution in Boston, its repeal, the Act of 1767, taxing imports of 
tea, paper and other articles, and the Boston Port Bill. 

The bill of i 764 had from its inception met the vigorous protest of 
Massachusetts and Virginia, and its passage served to consolidate pub- 
lic opinion, and thenceforth the popular watchword was Liberty. No 
echo of the riotous demonstration which occurred in Boston when 
these laws went into effect is found in our records. They do not indi- 
cate what the sentiment here was until we find the following action 
taken by the town. At a town meeting, January, 1773, one article to 
be acted upon was as follows : 

"To hear, consider, deliberate and act upon a Letter from the Town of 
Boston to the Selectmen of Waltham aforesaid complaining of the grievances 
the Inhabitants of this Province together with all the other of his Majestys 
subjects in America labour under ; and likewise stating the natural, civil and 
religious Rights of the Colonists." 

And the town voted to choose a committee to take the same into con- 
sideration, to draw up a vote in answer to said letter and report at the 
March meeting. Samuel Livermore, Esq., Jonas Uix, Esq., Capt. Abijah 
Brown, Leonard Williams, Esq., and Dea. Isaac Stearns were appointed 
a committee. The March meeting, however, does not appear to have 
considered the matter. The next important matter of which we find 
record was the following : 

At a meeting of the Selectmen, July nth, 1774, at the House of Isaac 
Gleason they agreed to procure four half Barrels of Powder, Four Hundred 
and one-half wt. of Bullets, and 300 Flints, and desired Capt. Abijaii Brown 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 43 

and Ensn. Sanil. Harrington to procure the same to compleat the Town 
Stock of Ammunition. 

In September, 1774, the town, in response to the circular letter sent 
out to the various towns and to the other colonies, passed the following 
vote at a town meeting : 

Voted & chose Capt. William Coolidge, Dean. Elijah Livermore, Capt. 
Abijah Brown, Lieut. Abijah Child & Ens. Abraham Peirce a Committee 
for other Towns to send to in any Emergency and they to send to other Towns 
on any Emergency. i^ 

And Dec. 12th, 1774, the following: 

The association of the Grand American Continental Congress was read to 
the Town and after a full Debate thereon the Town voted to choose a com- 
mittee of three persons to see that said Association should be stricdy carried 
into execution. Chose Jonas Dix, Esqr., Cornet Nathl. Bridge and Dean. 
Elijah Livermore. 

Thus at the close of the year 1774 we find the old town in line with 
the most advanced sentiment regarding the noble effort to free the 
country from oppression. The year 1775 had scarcely begun its event- 
ful and memorable course when at a town meeting held January 9th, 

1775. 

The question was put to know the mind of the Town whether they will all 
be prepared and stand ready equipt as Minute men and it passed in the 
affirmative. 

By this action the town promptly complied with the requests in the 
address to the freeholders and inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay, given 
out by the First Provincial Congress, December loth, i 774, then sit- 
ting at Cambridge, and at the same meeting Jonas Dix, Esq., was 
chosen as our delegate to the Second Congress. 

The name of Mr. Dix, or "Esquire Dix," as he was called both at 
at home and in the records of the Second Congress, of which he was a 



44 



SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



member, deserves more than passing mention. During this period of 
town history he appears to have undertaken and performed more than 
any other one citizen in the cause of liberty ; and though not a man of 
weahh, materially advanced the work he was engaged in. Besides fill- 
ing important local offices and acting as representative to the General 
Court, he served on important committees in the Congress. 

The Selectmen of the year 1775 were the patriotic Jonas Dix, Esq., 




RESIDENCE OF CORNET NAIHANIEL BRIDGES. 



Cornet Nathaniel Bridges, the hospitality of whose house in Trapelo^^ 
Washington accepted when he visited Waltham, Lieut. Daniel Child, 
Josiah Brovyn, and John Clark. 

Meanwhile the Committee of Safety for the Province, of which the 
patriotic Hancock and Warren were the most prominent members, had, 
since the latter part of 1774, been collecting military stores, arms and 
supplies, and on November 15 of that year had ordered the purchase 
of seven large pieces of cannon "on the best terms." This committee 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 45 

acted with the greatest secrecy ; their work was carried on with great 
energy ; they had abundant funds at command, and on their action the 
success of the resistance of Massachusetts was largely dependent. The 
disposition of the large stock of supplies under their control was a 
most serious question. The ordnance, of all things, must be so placed 
that in the day of need, expected every morrow, the patriots should 
not want the means of replying to British cannon. Where should they 
secrete the guns ? In looking about them for a place of convenience 
and security, where the inhabitants could be depended upon, the com- 
mittee selected our own town ; and here all the cannon and gun car- 
raiges appear to have been brought and secreted until the committee 
on January 25th, 1775, alarmed, perhaps, by information of a contem- 
plated raid from Gage's troops, or thinking the location too near, 
ordered all the cannon, mortars, balls and shells to be deposited at 
Worcester and Concord. After the Concord fight three of the cannon 
which had been carried from Concord to Marlborough, were ordered, 
April 25th, to be brought again to Waltham and there remained until 
May I7th.i'^ 

By the Journal of the committee we also learn that a detachment of 
Col. Jonathan Brewer's regiment was posted at Waltham and was 
ordered thence to headquarters at Cambridge and that in case of 
refusal all supplies to the men should cease. We leave this recital of 
the relations between this all important committee and our town, after 
noticing the following interesting order sent to our selectmen and still 
on file with other documents of great interest : 

In Committee of Safety, Cambridge, May 17, 1775. 

Whereas, one Mr. Mellicut of Waltliam who is an officer in his Majesty's 
service under half pay, is suspected by means of his (said Mellicut's Wife) 
having free access into and out from the Town of Boston, communicating 
such intelligence to our Enemies, as may have a tendency to injure the impor- 
tant cause we are engaged in, and in some degree defeat the Plan forming for 
the Salvation of this Colony and Continent, 

Therefore, Resolved, that the Selectmen & Committee of Correspondence 



46 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

of the Town of Waltham be and hereby are directed and empowered to take 
such effectual methods for the preventing any intelligence going into the Town 
of Boston by means of the above said Mellicut or any of his family as to 
them in their wisdom shall seem meet. 

Benja. Church, Jr., Chairman. i'' 

John Melliquet was licensed as a "Retailer", 1774 and 1775, by the 
Selectmen. 

We have now to consider what action our people of Waltham took 
on the memorable days of April 19th and June 17th, 1775, and it must 
be admitted that to one who approaches the consideration of this sub- 
ject, as well as all other local events relating to the actual service of the 
Waltham militia, the local records are, as has heen stated in previous 
memorials of Waltham's history, dull and uninteresting. But, thanks 
to information gained from the State Archives, accessible only within a 
few years, we can now ascertain more definitely what Waltham's soldiers 
did. 19 The muster rolls of many companies contain their names, but of 
interest above all, perhaps, are the rolls containing the names of Wal- 
tham's company of Minute Men, who on April 19th, 1775, took up 
arms, and under orders from Col. Thomas Gardner, to whose regiment 
they belonged, marched to meet the enemy. It is a remarkable list of 
names. It shows that a number of our men, exceeding one-half of the 
male population of Waltham above the age of sixteen years, were under 
arms and did service. In the present state of information all attempts 
to state exactly what route they took and what particular service they 
performed would be useless. It is to be borne in mind that an attack 
on Worcester was anticipated ; a British spy had been over the road to 
Worcester, April 5th, inspecting the bridges, and was detected and 
barely escaped capture at Weston ; that part of the cannon and other 
supplies were stored at Worcester, and that previous to the night of 
April 1 8th the patriots must have been in doubt as to which deposit 
of supplies the enemy would first seek to capture, or, indeed, 
whether they might not direct armed forces against both Concord and 
Worcester simultaneously or nearly so. In either case the protection 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 47 

of the Worcester road was of the greatest importance. The muster roll 
of the VValtham Minute Men is appended ; let it tell its own story. It 
contains the names of twelve officers and one hundred and eleven men, 
who were on duty for three days at the time of the Lexington alarm ; 
marched twenty-eight miles and drew pay for service amounting to 
^38 8s lod.-'o 

Many of these men enlisted in the Continental Army, and Capt. 
Abijah Child's Company in the 37th Regiment of Foot, commanded 
first by Col. Thos. Gardner. After the battle of Bunker Hill, where 
Col. Gardner received a mortal wound, the command fell to Lieut. Col. 
Wm. Bond. Gardner's regiment was in service at Bunker Hill, having 
been commissioned on or about May 27th, and Washington, in general 
orders of July 4th, 1775, refers to Gardner's death and funeral, and 
makes mention of him as "a brave and gallant officer who fought, bled 
and died in the cause of his country and mankind." The names of the 
Waltham officers and men in this company, thirty-eight in all, are given. 
This was known as the Waltham Company, and the muster roll is of 
the date, October 6th, 1775, ^o ^^at casualties at the battle of Bunker 
Hill are not shown. Many other Waltham soldiers were scattered 
among other regiments, the 25th, 28th and 38th Foot each having men 
from our town.-^ 

Whatever course Waltham's men took on that memorable day, we 
are satisfied it was animated by the highest patriotism. From conver- 
sation with aged people now living in Waltham, we learn of the alarm 
in our little community at the occasion ; that the British troops were 
on the 19th expected to come directly through the place ; that many fam- 
ilies left their houses, taking their children and such valuable property as 
could be easily transported, to places of security In that state of general 
alarm and momentary expectation of the approach of the enemy, it is not 
likely that the Waltham Company, as a body, went to take part in the 
fray at Lexington. But the memory of an aged lady, now living here,— 
assures us of the fact that many members of the company went to Lex- 
ington and participated in the action there ; her mind reaching back 



48 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

over a period of ninety years, with a remarkable clearness, she has this 
day related to one of your committee, conversation which she, when a 
child, had with one of the VValtham men who was at Lexington and 
bore arms there, Sergt. Elisha Harrington, whose name is on the muster 
roll, in which he described the scene, and in a lively manner repeated 
the sayings and doings of his companions'. She also recalls the name 
of Abraham Bemis as another of our men who was there. 

During subsequent years of the war our town responded quickly 
to calls for men and supplies, and took other patriotic action, as will 
appear from the following votes : 

May 13th, 1775. At a meeting of the Select Men of Wallham, May 13th, 
1775, the Select Men delivered out to the several Soldiers hereinafter men- 
tioned a good Blanket agreeable to the Recommendation of the Provincial 
Congress, they being inlisted into the service of the Massachusetts for the 
Defence of the Liberties of America, and ordered the Treasr to advance 
money to pay for the same viz. Eliphalet Hastings, Jonas Lawrence, Elijah 
Cutting, Elisha Cox, William Lock, Samuel Roberts, John Glynn, Josiah 
Convers, Cutting Clark, Abraham Parkhurst, Matthew Peirce, Josiah Bemis 
Jun., Daniel Warren, Elijah Mead, Samuel Mulliken, Amos Fisk, Zechariah 
Weston, Job Priest, David Smith, Benjamin Gallop, Amos Harrington, 
George Wellington, Micah Bumpo, Jonas Smith Jun., John Viles, Josiah 
Lovett, Elisha Harrington, Habakkuk Stearns, Jesse Goodell, Nathan Wright, 
Asa Gould, Bezaleel Wright, Abijah Fisk, Rufus Stacey, Isaac Bemis, Elisha 
Stearns, Reuben Bemis. Timothy Flagg, Eliphalet Warren, Moses Warren, 
William Sprague, Thaddeus Child, Andrew Benjamin, Jolin Symms, Edmund 
Lock. They likewise delivered to Abraham Parkhurst Wm. Wellington's 
Gun, and to Daniel Warren Josiah Brown's Gun and to Eliphalet Hastings 
Jonas Dix Esq's Gun, the owners thereof being willing to lend the same and 
ordered the Treasr to pay the expense of their meeting, amounting to 2s 5d. 

March '4th, 1776. Chose Jacob Bigelow, Sam'I Harrington and Elisha 
Cutter (Cuder?) a committee "To devise Ways & Means for introducing the 
manufacturing Salt Petre into Private Families," and Capt. Wm. Coolidge, 
Thos. Wellington and Lt. Saml Stearns, a Committee of Correspondence, 
Inspection and Safety. 

May 27th, 1776. The question being put to know the mind of the Town 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 49 

whether they will advise their Representative that if the Honorable Congress 
should for the Safety of the united Colonies Declare them Independent of the 
Kingdom of Great Britain they the said Inhabitants will Solemnly engage with 
their lives and fortunes to support them in the measure And it passed in the 
affirmative. 

June 25th, 1776. Voted & granted the sum of six pound, & six shilling & 
8d as an encouragement to be paid to each non-commissioned officer and 
soldier that shall engage in the present expedition to Canada. 

March loth, 1777. Chose Elisha Cutter, Peter Ball, Peter Warren,--^ Capt. 
Abijah Child and Capt. Abraham Child a committee "to receive money and 
lay it out for the purpose of hiring men (in as prudent a manner as they can) 
to engage in behalf of this Town in the Service of the united States of Amer- 
ica during the war or three years. 

May 19th, 1777. Chose Jonas Dix, Esq., Representative, and "Instructed 
him to Joyn (if he thinks proper) with the Representatives and Council in one 
Body to form such a Constitution of Government as he shall Judge best Cal- 
culated to Promote the happiness of this State. 

October 19th, 177S, Abner Sanderson, Elisha Cutler, Peter Warren, 
John Bright and Jonas Child, a committee appointed in September of 
the same year to estimate what each had done in the War up to that 
time, either in personally bearing arms or in "paying money to encour- 
age others to do the same," made a lengthy and valuable report. The 

report called for an appropriation of ^'3308 6s 4d to reimburse all 
parties, and that sum was granted. ^-i 

June T8th, 1778, Col. Abijah Brown, Peter Ball and William Welling- 
ton were appointed a committee to hire men to reinforce the army, 
agreeable to the Resolve of the General Court, passed June 8th and 9th, 
on the best possible terms. 

September 20th, 1779, the Town appropriated ^2838 to repay 
Jonas Dix for obligations incurred in hiring soldiers. It was also voted 
to hire four soldiers for the "Rhode Island Expedition." 

October 14th, 1779, It was voted to hire eight men called for to re- 
inforce the army under Gen. Washington. 

November ist, 1779, The sum of ^2120 i8s 6d was appropriated to 



so 



SESOUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



cancel the obligation incurred by the committee in hiring the men 
authorized October 14th. 

November 29th, 1779, "After a full debate" the town authorized the 
Selectmen to procure shirts, shoes and stockings for the soldiers, as 
requested by the Oeneral Court. 

June 14th, 1780, the Town appropriated ^,' 14,000 to hire twelve men 




RESIDENCE OK REV. SAMUEL Rll'LKV. 



called for to reinforce the army, and for the purchase of clothing for the 
soldiers, pursuant to a Resolve of the General Court of A])ril 2rst, i 780. 

June 26th, I 780, the Town voted to hire fourteen men and appro- 
priated ^,'26,660 for the purpose. 

July 29th, 1 780, appropriated ^2900 for payment for three horses 
l^urchased of Jonas Dix, Abner Sanderson and Peter Ball for the use of 
the Army, and ^35 additional for expense in procuring them. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 5 I 

October nth, 1780, appropriated ^12,000 to procure 7200 weight of 
beef required of the Town for the Army by the Resolve of September 

26th.25 

December 20th, 17S0, the Town voted to procure twelve men to 
serve in the Continental Army, under the call of December 2d, to serve 
three years or the war. The men were to be hired by the month, if it 
was possible to do so. At the same meeting ^21,000 were appropri- 
ated to procure 13,824 pounds of beef for the Army, as called for by 
the Resolve of December 4th. On January 8th, 1781, ^50,400 were 
appropriated for hiring the aforementioned twelve men.^'^ 

March 5th, 1781, voted ^^24,000, old emission, for hiring soldiers. 
On April 2nd it was voted to assess only so much of the above as was 
needed to pay John Smith. 

July 3rd, 1 781, the town voted unanimously to procure additional 
men called for, and appropriated 180 in ^silver to pay for them. 
Voted ^300, new emission, to procure beef required for three months. 

July 30th, 1 78 1, the committee appointed to procure soldiers under 
vote of July 3rd, reported that they had "procured the men for 780 
hard dollars," payable $30 each in ten days and the balance in three 
months, with interest ; the Town to receive their wages. Voted to ap- 
propriate ^60 in silver, in addition to the ^180 previously granted. 

The calls for men were all filled, it is believed, until the latter part of 
1 781, when the committee for procuring soldiers reported as follows : 

We the subscribers a committee appointed to procure soldiers to join the 
army for three years or during the war have attended that sarvis & cannot 
find one man at any price in this Town. 

The votes of the Town upon the proposal to establish a constitution- 
al form of government in Massachusetts are of interest. They are re- 
corded as follows : 

April 28th, 1776, the Town refused to give its assent that the present 
House of Representatives and Council agree upon a form of Constitu- 
tion.-' 



52 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

May 19th, 1778, the Town was convened to consider, among other 
things, the question of acting upon the Constitution and form of gov- 
ernment for Massachusetts Bay, agreed upon by the Convention of said 
State, February 28th, 1778. The meeting adjourned, without voting, to 
June I St, when it was laid before the inhabitants of said Town ; "after 
it was duly considered by them the Vote was put to know their minds 
whether they approved of the form and it passed in the negative yea 6 
to nay 22." 

February 9th, 1778. The Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union 
between the United States of America was read to the Town and maturely 
considered by them the Town unanimously agreed that the said plan of Con- 
federacy is well adapted for the securing the Freedom, Sovereignty and Inde- 
pendence of the United States of America and Instructed their Representative 
to give his vote in favor ot authorizing the Delegates from this State to ratify 
the same in ye Congress of the United States that the same may become 
conclusive. 

May 24th, 1780. The Constitution and Form of Government for the State 
of Massachusetts Bay was read to the Town and after a full debate thereon 
the Town voted and chose Jonas Dix, Esqr., Leonard Williams, Esqr., Capt. 
Wm. Coolidge, Josiah Hastings, Capt. Isaac Gleason, Abner Sanderson, 
William Fisk, Cort. Nathl. Bridge & Lieut. Samuel Stearns a Committee to 
revise and consider the same and report their opinion thereof to the Town. 

At a subsequent meeting, June 5th, 1780, the Committee apptd to examine 
and revise the Constitution and Form of Government for this State Reported 
that having carefully attended that Service would propose the following alter- 
ation and amendments therein, viz : "That the Habeas Corpus Act never 
ought to be suspended for a longer time than six months, as in that time any 
Person may be brought to his Tryal or admitted to Bail. But however if the 
said Amendments cannot be obtained that then the Delegates for this Town 
be instructed to vote for tlie same as it now stands," which Report was read 
to the Town and after a full debate thereon the Question was put to know the 
mind of the Town whether they would accept thereof and it passed in the 
affirmative 32 yea to 4 nay. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 53 

In the War of 1812 the Town maintained its reputation for patriotism 
and liberality to its soldiers.^^ 

January ist, 1814. Voted that the pay of the soldiers who shall be drafted 
as the quota of the Militia furnished by the Town agreeable to Act of Congress 
be made up including the pay of Government to $15 per month, each man 
and that they receive $1.25 per day for each day they may be called out for 
military discipline under the officers who shall be detached. 

August 8th, 1814. Voted that the Town will make up to the Soldiers who 
have been detached, $15 per month including the pay received from Govern- 
ment and five dollars to each man as bounty. 

The event in the history of the town of the most importance to its 
material interests is the establishment of the works of the Boston Man- 
ufacturing Company in 1813. Thus we celebrate by the year not only 
the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town, but the seventy- 
fifth of the establishment of our first great industry. The importance of 
this event is not less in the results to the town than to the country at 
large. It wrought a change in the character of the town from an agri- 
cultural to a manufacturing community. It gave a new impulse to 
growth and development and marked an era in our history. But the 
merely local effect is insignificant when compared with the era which 
the establishment of the factories marked in the manufacturing and 
industrial interests of the country. As in history we regard the places 
where great deeds have been accomplished with particular veneration, 
so we can regard the spot where the modern system of American man- 
ufactures had its birth with more than ordinary interest. Here was 
accomplished the first successful experiment of cotton manufacture on 
a large scale and on a broad, comprehensive plan. Cotton cloth had 
already been manufactured to a limited extent in other places. The 
spinning had been done in one place and the weaving in another. It 
was originally intended that the Waltham mills should be erected for 
the purpose of weaving by power loom, but when it was found that the 
spinning could also be profitably done, that part of the manufacture was 



54 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

included in the works. Here, as Bishop says in his history of American 
manufactures, " the successful use of the power loom and all the oper- 
ations for converting raw cotton into printed cloth were for the first 
time introduced into this country and probably in the world." Thus 
we stand the pioneer in that gigantic system of manufactures which has 
revolutionized the character of textile industry and brought so much 
wealth and prosperity to the whole country. 

This enterprise stands pre-eminent, not only for its own immediate 
success, but for the great results which followed. 

" Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." The country 
was then engaged in its second war with England and our flag was 
attaining a glory on the sea which to-day is a part of our national heri- 
tage. On the land we were engaged in military enterprises through 
which two men gained the prestage as military leaders subsequently to 
make them Presidents. But in the silent and peaceful occupations of 
industrial pursuits other men were performing even greater deeds for 
their country's honor and welfare. Francis C. Lowell, an American of 
great genius, conceived the idea, while in England, of improving upon 
the methods of manufacturing cloth, and of putting his plans in opera 
tion in his native country. 

He associated with himself Patrick T. Jackson, a man of great exec- 
utive ability, and Nathan Appleton, a wealthy, far-seeing and patriotic 
merchant of Boston. The capital stock of the corporation was $400,- 
000. The site of a paper mill^^ was purchased, additional water power 
secured, and the building of a factory commenced in 1S13. Mr. Lowell 
not only improved the English looms, but also originated much new 
machinery, in the invention of which he performed the nicest mathe- 
matical calculations. In the construction of im])roved mechanism he 
was assisted by the practical skill and mechanical genius of Paul Moody. 
The first cloth was made in 1814, a heavy sheeting. No. 14, thirty-seven 
inches wide and weighing a little less than three yards to the pound. 
It was a matter of accident that it should have been so suited to the 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 



55 



public demand, but it has continued to be the standard article of cot- 
ton manufacture. It sold for thirty cents a yard. 

As we trace our great system of cotton manufacture back to this 
humble and successful commencement, who can deny the highest meed 
of praise and of patriotic gratitude to those men whose skill, enter- 
prise, energy and qualities of mind accomplished so much? They 
stand as the greatest representatives of American manufacturing indus- 
tries and grand exponents of our national enterprise and character. 




THE OLD FACTORY SCHOOL HOUSE. 



We are fortunate in having with us to-day and on this platform the 
descendants and representatives of those three originators of our man- 
ufactures. Not only are they the lineal descendants, but by a singular 
and happy coincidence a representative of each of the eminent men 
bears identically the same honored name of his ancestor. But these 
men were great not only in their mechanical and executive abilities, but 
in a far nobler sense. Their scheme was on a broader basis than that 
of mere money getting or even that of the development of the most 
cunning and labor-saving machinery. They recognized the fact that 



56 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 

the character of the working men and women was an element of true 
success. They determined that the moral and intellectual worth of the 
operatives should be a factor in the new enterj^rise. Their welfare 
should be one of the great principles on which this first manufactory 
should be established. Lowell and Appleton in their visits to Europe 
had observed the degraded condition of the factory people, the hovels 
in which they lived, and all the uncomfortable surroundings of their 
daily lives. And in their great work, with true American feeling and 
with a sentiment of the highest Christian character, the projectors deter- 
mined that manhood and womanhood should not be sacrificed to mere 
material interests, but rather elevated in the application of all the fac- 
ulties bestowed by nature. Good boarding-houses were erected, schools 
were established, a church was fostered and encouraged, a library was 
purchased, and the lecture room opened its doors for practical and 
entertaining knowledge. For upwards of half a century, as regularly 
as the bell summoned the operatives to their work, its daily peal at a 
quarter to nine in the morning summoned the children to the school.''^" 
The vicinity of the factory was set off as a school district and Patrick 
T. Jackson accepted the position of local school committee. The 
library was given to the Rumford Institute, and afterwards through that 
institution to the town, forming the nucleus of our prosperous Public 
Library. The intelligent men and women to whom the amenities and 
possibilities of life were thus opened, who have graduated from our 
factories into other spheres of usefulness, and those who continue with 
us and those also who have gone forever from our presence, leaving a 
pleasant memory, are gratifying examples of the high purpose and grand 
object of the founders of the Boston Manufacturing Company. A noted 
example may be cited in one whom we still are proud to number among 
our fellow citizens. Starting in his career in the employ of the com- 
pany in humble capacity, he has numbered the chief magistracy of the 
Commonwealth among the distinctions which his fellow citizens have 
bestowed upon him. And the honor, genius and intelligence of the 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 57 

American mechanic have been represented and defended on the floor 
of Congress by his fervid eloquence and marked ability. 

What a noble policy ! How grandly it stands forth after the lapse of 
three-quarters of a century ! All honor to the men who thus ennobled 
labor and added to its dignity all the sweet influences of culture and 
refinement ! We will not say that they builded better than they knew, 
for they anticipated the result attained. Jackson and Appleton lived to 
look upon the monument they erected and to see the glory of their work 
lighting up its summit. 

Lowell died a few years after the inauguration of his enterprise, with- 
out living to witness the full results of his efforts. Mr. Appleton, in his 
interesting reminiscences, says that Mr. Lowell was the informing soul 
that gave direction and form to the whole proceeding. At the early age 
of forty-two he gave up life's work. But his memory is imperishably 
connected with the city which bears his name, and with the annals of 
American manufactures. 

It was through the success at Waltham that the greater operations at 
Lowell were undertaken. Waltham is said to be the mother of Lowell, 
and though the offspring has outgrown its parent, still, an acknowledg- 
ment of their mutual relations cannot be out of place. Much of the 
first machinery was made here and transported over the road to Lowell, 
and Mr. Moody and others of the most skilful artisans were also trans- 
ferred to the new and enlarged field of operations. Thus Waltham 
may truly boast of her parentage of the great spindle city. Her fac- 
tories were the primary school where the first prin(i|)]es of skilful and 
successful manufacture were practically taught. 

In 1816 the modification of the tariff gave a new impetus to our 
manufacturing interests. Massachusetts was at that time a state whose 
maritime, far exceeded her manufacturing interests. And it is a singu- 
lar fact, worthy of observation, that both of the Massachusetts senators 
voted against a measure upon which subsequently our prosperity so 
largely depended, while the senators from South Carolina as strenuously 
supported it. In a few years the situation was reversed, and nullifica- 



58 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

tion and ultimately secession were justified by their advocates on account 
of the protective principles of our tariff laws, of which this measure 
was the precursor. 

Our history during the past three-quarters of a century has witnessed 
an almost uninterrupted prosperity. In common with the progress of 
our country and the expanding force of its civilization over the vast 
area of our hitherto unsettled lands, we have increased in wealth and 
happiness, and all the elements that make up a thrifty and well ordered 
community. Under the free institution of our government we have 
experienced the equality of manhood, and have enjoyed all the bless- 
ings which religious and political toleration can afford. We have had 
more than the average share in all that contributes to material welfare 
and successful competition in the world's affairs. Linked to the metrop- 
olis of New England by proximity and by the identity of many of our 
interests with hers, we feel the impulse of her growth and prosperity. 
Steadily and with no backward step we have gone forward since the 
waters of our beautiful river first tempted the manufacturer and capital- 
ist, and made a new revelation in our resources. Our busy thorough- 
fares lead out in the scenes of unsurpassed natural beauty, and we enjoy 
the combination of the rural retreat, the suburban home, and the active 
marts of business and manufacturing industry. 

During the first half of the present century Waltham was quite a 
noted military centre ; its broad plains and the ample accommodations 
of its inns invited the military trainings and country muster. Here also 
was often held an autumnal celebration now passed into disuse, the 
" Cornwallis," in commemoration of the surrender at Yorktown and the 
close of the Revolution. A sham battle was fought ; the grotesque 
movemenis of the country militia imitated, as far as possible, " the 
pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war," and the mock heroic 
was carried to the final act of surrender. It was doubtless in witness- 
ing one of these displays and travesties upon warfare that Lowell felt 
inspired in his IJiglow i)apers to write the lines. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 59 

Recollect wut fun we hed, you 'n'l and Ezry Hollis, 

Up there to Waltham Plain last fall, along o' the Cornwallis? 

But holiday military parades were no indication of the serious minds 
of the people when actual duty called. The tocsin of war found Wal- 
tham ready. The record of her soldiers is a part of the history of the 
country. No poor words of ours can add to or detract from their mer- 
its. Yonder monument speaks in more eloquent language than we 
would presume to express, even if it were in our power to do so.'^^ 




THE " STRAITON " JAVERN. 
As it appeared at the time of its destruction by fire, Feb. ii, 1893. 

Many other manufactories have from time to time been established 
with us, but it is no disparagement to any when we cite only a single 
example in addition. The name and fame of our city have extended 
throughout the civilized world by the means of our great and doubtless 
most extensive industry. The American Waltham Watch Factory, the 
largest in the world, has given an impulse to our progress and develop- 
ment of the most remarkable character. Like the works of the Boston 



6o SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Manufacturing Company, it is a pioneer in its particular sphere of 
manufacture, and like that it has been managed with the liberal policy 
and with those high principles which reflect the greatest honor upon its 
directing mind. Commencing operations in 1854 under another name 
and with the guiding genius of Aaron L. Dennison, it demonstrated the 
practical and successful application of the most nicely adjusted machinery 
to the manufacture of watches, which had hitherto been made chiefly 
by hand. To Mr. Dennison, whom many of our citizens still pleasantly 
remember, none can deny that genius, skill, and persevering enterprise 
which inaugurated the industrial and mechanical success of watch making 
in this country. Experiencing the financial vicissitudes of many new 
establishments, it was re-organized in 1858 under the name of the 
American Watch Company. With the broad views and executive abil- 
ity of Royal E. Robbins it has taken an exalted rank for the character 
and magnitude of its works, the artistic and mechanical skill of its arti- 
sans, male and female, and the almost munificent management that has 
characterized its course. So harmonious have been the relations of 
the company with the operatives that no strike or other labor trouble 
has ever occurred in its history. 

The change from town to city in 1884 has wrought a revolution and in- 
novation in our public affairs of the most radical kind. Our body politic 
differs more from what it was before that event, than it then did from its 
character at the time of our incorporation. The town meeting has passed 
away, the direct government of the people is transferred to official rep- 
resentatives. The laws of progress demand the new system in prefer- 
ence to the old. It is for us to make it successful and execute the 
functions of good government through those who shall make and ad- 
minister the laws. We are all responsible, fellow citizens, for the main- 
tenance of the honest and efficient administration of affairs which has 
been handed down to us from our earliest history. " 'I'he past, at least, 
is secure," and the future is full of jiromise and hope, livery govern- 
ment is what the people make it. The moral, political and educational 
forces of our community are in our own hands, to be transmitted to 



ORIGINAL HYMN. 6l 

those who come after us. Material prosperity is of little avail when 
attained by any sacrifice of the eternal principles upon which free 
government is based. As a part of a great nation devoted to popular 
government and to the principles of justice resting upon the consent of 
the governed, let us be true to ourselves and to posterity, so that when 
a half century has rolled by and others stand in our places, they can 
regard the past without regret and the future without apprehension. 



Following this address the chorus sang the accompanying 
original hymn, written for the occasion by Mr. William Morton 
Fullerton. 

O River Charles that floweth 

Through Waltham to the sea, 
That glideth bright and hopeful 

Down woodland and through lea ; 
And ancient nook ot Prospect, 

Our city's far-seen crown 
That standeth all in glory, 

When westering suns drop down, — 
We call on you, thy children ! 

Oh hear us, we implore ! 
And join with ours thy festal words, 

The secrets of thy lore ! 

*' I wind and wind a river, 

I glide from dawn to dawn, 
Yet winding, tire never. 

Nor murmur song forlorn ; 
But free and joyous ever, 

I lead down to the river 
What streams make me a river. 

And lose their life for mine. 



62 SES(^UI-CENTENNIA1, CELEBRATION. 

So cry I from my waters, 

O, men of Vv'altham, know 
That e'en the unseen humble 

Shall safely seaward go." 

I watch the glinting ocean, 

I guard your quiet town, 
And stand through winter, summer. 

And autumn's golden brown. 
Firm, steadfast and eternal. 

While round my head are blown 
All freshening airs of heaven, 

That woo great souls alone. 
So from these upper regions 

IMy voice comes stern, yet kind, 
Pass up from out the lowlands, 

And life worth living find. 

O, River fair and Prospect, 

Your mingled words are sweet, 
Divinely strong as Nature's, 

Whose thoughts are full, conijjlete. 
And we, your children, thank you : 

Your voices thrill as our's 
To Heaven for all blessings 

From all-wide Heaven's Power, 
And Him of whom your voices 

Are echoes gracious deep. 
We ask now with Thank.sgiving 

As unborn years to keep. 

After the singin<; of the hymn. Mayor Fisher called iq^oii 
Governor Ames for a few remarks, to which His hLxcellency 
responded substantially as follows: 

After the somewhat lengthy though extremely valuable and interest 



REMARKS OF GOV. AMES. 



63 



ing addresses to which you have listened, it will not be expected that I 
should say anything that will be especially interesting to you. 

It is quite the custom nowadays, among the towns of this Common- 
wealth, to celebrate the anniversaries of their incor]Doration. During 
my administration Worcester, Springfield, Hingham, Duxbury and 
Ipswich have each celebrated their two hundred and fiftieth anniversary ; 
East Hampton and Grafton their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 
and Lowell its fiftieth. It is a very laudable custom. I have now come 
to be with you in your celebration. There is no town in the Common- 




THE LYMAN ESTATE, 

Showing the Old Church, Lyman Mansion, and the former Residence of 
Rev. Warham Williams. 

From a Painting owned by J. F. Moore, made about 1S20. 



wealth whose past has been more useful, which has a more honorable 
present or brighter future, than has Waltham. You have one of your citi- 
zens here whose name is illustrious in every American home. His 
career is familiar, and an inspiration to all American youth. He has 
made success a duty and duty a success. Waltham and General N. P. 
Banks are one and inseparable. I have no doubt there are other men 
here who would have been as successful as he had they been given the 



64 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

opportunity. There is no one city more famous the world over than 
Waltham. It seems invidious to select but one industry, but your 
watch factory is an illustrious example of the success of the protection 
of American industry. Its trademark is known the world over, and 
wherever your watches go the name of Waltham is held in high honor. 
I come to you to-day as the Governor of the State, to bring you 
the greetings of all its people for what you have done, and to give you 
their wishes for a most prosperous future. 

After the Governor had concluded the Mayor presented Rev. 
Edward F. Hayward, of Chicopee, the poet of the day, who 
read the following original poem : 

RISE OF A MODERN CITY. 

Unwalled, unguarded from the foe, 

It rises where the waters flow 

Of some swift tumbling mountain stream. 

As in a night. Aladdin's dream 

Seems scarce more wonderful. Ten years. 

At best a hundred, and, behold. 

The full fledged city now appears. 

Promise of beauties manifold. 

Not so the cities of the plain 

That rose in some old monarch's reign, 

The turreted and bristling towns 

The shadow of whose rampart frowns 

In song and story. Fear of men 

Drove people near together then. 

Around their homes they dug the fosse 

O'er which no alien foot might cross ; 

At gate of iron, tripple barred. 

Sounded the challenge of the guard ; 

And ever on the battlements 

The sentry walked in their defense. 



ORIGINAL POEM. 6$ 

Now open, free to all men, stand 

The cities of our happier land. 

We build them on the broader plan 

Of common service. Brother man 

Is welcomed for his enterprise. 

And helped by our philanthropies 

In his misfortune. We are one : 

The native citizen and son 

Of him who once, a farmer, tilled 

These streets with teeming life now filled ; 

And sons and daughters from afar. 

Stock of New England hills, whose star 

Stood o'er the cities, while the farms 

Lost for their children all their charms ; 

From Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire all. 

Where'er their youthful memories fall. 

Here is their home, their work is here, 

And wide the circle grows each year. 

Ah, what would say those pioneers 

Who broke the path that now appears 

A broad highway. They blazed the tree 

Through trackless forests, while they see 

Boston behind them, and before 

A weary wilderness in store. 

The turf is soft beneath their feet. 

And round them brakes and blossoms sweet, 

Invite the sense. The song of bird 

And rustle of the leaves is heard, 

But nowhere sound of human voice ; 

Yet bravely to their pilgrim choice 

They hold themselves. Whate'er the fare, 

'Tis better than Old World despair. 

So Cambridge, Watertown, the rest 
Of lengthening townships to the west, 
As, with the people, multiplied 



66 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

Names into which they each divide. 
And Waltham, not the last or least, 
From parent Watertovvn was pieced. 

It lay a hamlet gathered low 
About the Charles, whose lazy flow 
From Milford meadows seeks the sea. 
Woodhouse, the ancient use would be. 
The forest home; for full in shade 
Of old Bear Hill its rise was made ; 
And still upon its streets we see 
The ample green of shrub and tree. 

Here Lowell came whose happy fame 

Lives in a sister city's name ; 

And Moody, Jackson, Appleton, 

We call them Father now, not son. 

Bid Industry new front assume 

By planting here the power-loom. 

Go where you will, north, south, east, west. 

The whir of spindles strikes the ear ; 

But Cotton, if he's King confessed. 

Began his mighty empire here. 

Here first the factory girls and boys 
Exchanged familiar rustic joys 
For life together. Then they came 
From country homes, allured by fame 
Of wages high and comforts warm 
Unknown upon the distant farm ; 
You'll find them now as, man and wife. 
The standbys of our social life ; 
As city fathers, men of weight, 
Lofty in councils of the state. 
And women first in all the land. 
With kindly heart and generous hand. 



ORIGINAL POEM. dy 

One such, well known not here alone, 
' Tis yours to-day to call your own, 
So long he's shared your local joys, 
The first and best of Bobbin Boys. 
Afar you've watched him, in the halls 
Of legislation and where falls 
The smoke and clamor of the fray. 
Pride of the Village, now the pride 
Of citizens on every side. 
Most honored of all sons to-day. 

Then, Muses, let me not omit 

That ancient figure, made to sit. 

Presiding genius o'er the facts 

And cover of our almanacs, 

Old Father Time, — well known to you, 

A citizen of Waltliam too. 

Across the river his estate 
Is worthy of a god so great, 
A mighty castle where a host 
Are toiling for him in the boast 
That all the world may be awake 
If time from Waltham it will take. 

The guardian of the distant train ; 
The mariner upon the main ; 
Who hunts in forests, and who guides 
The ship of Business o'er the tides 
Of this world's infinite affairs. 
The lover whose quick pulses throb. 
To hie him to his lady's stairs; — 
All these bear ticking in their fob 
The time-piece that where'er we go 
Makes Waltham known to all men. So 



68 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 

You build your fortunes, live your lives ; 
And what is good alone survives 
Your fifty and a hundred years. 
Long peace has dwelt on Waltham Plain ; 
And thrift makes ever greater gain 
Along your borders. Still appears 
The farmer on your streets at noon 
With fruit of labor nobly borne 
'Neath winter frost and summer sun ; 
The stranger too is here, intent 
On what your industry has done ; 
And you yourselves, best instrument 
Of future worth and greatness. Hold 
The gift the fathers handed down. 
Making it richer with new gold, 
Fair metal wrought into a crown, 
And wear it while the years shall last. 
So better even than the past 
Your city shall have life to come. 
Build it to nature. Keep each home 
Wide open to the truth, and swing 
Its portals to the feet that bring 
Good tidings from afar ; and so. 
Building it better than you know, 
You shall be free, and by this sign 
Conquer a heritage benign. 

The choru-s then sang Eichburg'.s hymn, " To Thee O 
Country," after which the singing of America by the audience 
closed the exercises of the afternoon. 



THE BANQUET AND BALL. 

At an early hour in the evening the holders of tickets for the 
banquet began to assemble and it was soon evident that the 
spacious banquet room would be comfortably filled. The tables 
were temptingly spread by Caterer Dill and were soon filled 
after the procession commenced to move basement-ward. Gen- 
eral Banks presided, and at his request Rev. E. J. Young in- 
voked the Divine blessing. 

Dill had prepared the following menu, which was printed on 
a heavy double card, tied with white satin ribbon. The front 
of the menu was embellished by a fine steel engraving repre- 
senting a scene on the Charles River just beyond Lily Point. 

MENU. 

SALADS. 

Lobster. Salmon. Chicken. 

Escallopecl and Creamed Oysters. 

COLD MEATS. 

Turkey. Chicken. Ham. Tongue. 

Cranberry Sauce. Mashed Potatoes. 

RELISHES. 

Celery. Olives. Mixed Pickles. 



/O • SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

ROLLS. 

Fingers. English. Tea. 

DESSERT. 

Frozen Pudding. Charlotte Russe. Wine Jelly. 

ICE CREAMS. 

Pistachio. Coffee. Chocolate. Vanilla. Strawberry. Banana. 

Variety of Cakes. 

SHERBETS. 

Pineapple. Orange. Lemon. 

Bonibe Glace. Biscuit Glace. 

FRUITS. 

Bananas. Oranges. Apples. Grapes. Nuts. Raisins 

DRINKS. 

Coff"ee. Milk. Tea. 

The excellent and well served banquet over, General Banks 
called the company to order. He was sorry to interrupt their 
pleasure but as the serious business upstairs began at 9.30 it 
was necessary to finish the exercises here as soon as possible. 
He paid a compliment to the State, which he said was always 
entitled to our homage, never more than now, and presented 
Lieutenant-Governor Brackett as the representative of Massa- 
chusetts. Mr. Brackett said : 

The rounding of one hundred and fifty years in the life of a town 
was worthy of celebration. Waltham, famed throughout the world for 
its excellent watches which, accurately marked such small intervals of 
time, would naturally notice the longer jieriods. The Commonwealth 
shares in these celebrations. It is a curious fact that the expiration of 
the first half of the period we now celebrate was signalized by so im- 
portant an event as the establishment of the Boston Manufacturing 
Company. The policy inaugurated by the company towards its em- 
ployes was broad, liberal and productive of the best results. The legal 



THE BANQUET AND BALL. 



71 



maxim that " corporations have no souls " was not applicable to them. 
The growth of the industries of Waltham was due to the generous pol- 
icy established by that company and repeated by the z-\merican Watch 
Company. The results are seen in the character of the products and 







ff^l^l* eMorfD% MmR^ibA '^T^^^x' 



FRONT PAGE OF PROCRAMME. 
About one quarter size. 



of the men. The Commonwealth is benefitted thereby. As a con- 
spicuous example he would say that to-morrow a committee of the 
Executive Council would start for Washington with the portraits of 
three Massachusetts men who had been speakers in the National House 



T2 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

of Representatives. One of these men was General Banks. Just 
thirty-two years ago next month he was elected speaker and his election 
marked a new national era. Just thirty years ago this month he was 
inaugurated Governor. He was in this station called upon to address 
Harvard College, and a prominent man in speaking of the occa- 
sion said : " The graduate of the Waltham factory spoke on the 
same platform with the graduate of Harvard and suffered none by the 
comparison." The careers of such men are always an honor to the 
State and the Commonwealth appreciates them. 

Mr. Brackett's allusions to General Banks were all received 
with hearty applause. 

The president then presented Judge Hoar, of Concord, the 
representative of one of the oldest and most patriotic families, 
who congratulated his neighbors of Waltham on having attained 
so respectable an age, and maintained so respectable a char- 
acter. He presumed they felt the pressure of antiquity, but 
when he received the invitation it occurred to him that but 
three generations ago in his family there was no Waltham. His 
mother's father was seventeen years old when Waltham was 
incorporated, and so it did not seem so old after all. New 
England towns when they get together to commemorate a birth- 
day like to praise themselves. He knew how it was for Con- 
cord had recently celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth birth- 
day. It was agreeable, too, to invite the neighbors in to help 
in the praise. Waltham had a claim on him, for seventy years 
ago a Waltham minister baptised him. The people in all the 
towns above always admired Waltham's roads. A town that has 
furnished a Governor, a Speaker of the House and a Major-Gen- 
eral was entitled to consideration; Waltham had furnished two 
governors. He spoke of the Lyman and Gore estates as being, 
when laid out, the two handsomest parks in Massachusetts.*'^ 



THE BANQUET AND BALL. 73 

Waltham had too a very celebrated institution of education, 
Mrs. Ripley's school. Mrs. Ripley never had a pupil who was 
not an admirer. In mechanics, too, Waltham had won renown. 
Taking all these things into consideration Waltham was entitled 
to praise. Judge Hoar concluded by extolling highly the 
methods b}^ which those in charge of factories here had carried 
on the industries. 

General Banks next called on Speaker Noyes of the Massa- 
chusetts House of Representatives, who was happy to say that 
this was not his first visit to Waltham. He had been here when 
the city was robed in beauty and he knew that Waltham had 
come to be recognized as a beautiful city. This was the first time 
he had had a chance to recognize the beauty of its hearthstones 
and homes. He spoke highly of General Banks as one at whose 
feet he had been allowed to sit to learn how to efovern an 
assembly. The National House chose wisely when it elected 
him Speaker. 

General Banks then related an anecdote of Francis C. Lowell, 
when a prisoner during the last war on board the Dartmoor 
prison-ship, he sought out the source of England's advanced 
position in manufactures and commerce, and having found the 
source he came to W^altham, and on the banks of our little 
stream laid the foundations for the cotton industry. New Eng- 
land was not facile in the work. Up to 1820 slave-holding 
Georgia led in manufactures the six New England states. Low- 
ell then was about forty years old. He died when forty-two, 
but in that time he planted the seeds of this industry. Among 
the founders of the manufacture was Nathan Appleton, the 
treasurer of the company. With him was Warren Colburn the 
arithmetician. The General then presented as the representa- 
tive of the first treasurer, Mr. Nathan Appleton, a gentleman 



74 



SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



who was associated with M. Ferdinand de Lesseps in the con- 
struction of the Suez and Panama canals. Mr. Appleton said : 

The part of your civic history upon which I am called upon especially 
to speak began with the last half of this period of Waltham's existence, 
for it is just seventy-five years ago that my father, with his associates, 
Francis C. Lowell and Patrick T. Jackson, with the mechanical services 
of Paul Moody to aid them in detail, formed and started the Boston 




COTTON MILLS IN 182O. 



Manufacturing Company, using the water power of the river Charles, 
at which mill the power loom was first put in operation this side of the 
Atlantic for the manufacture of cotton goods. This was the real begin- 
ning of the new movement which completely swept aside old methods 
by its simplicity and economy, and revolutionized the cotton manufac- 
tures of America. The mill at Waltham was the pioneer of those which 
soon followed in other places, and called into existence the great cities 
of Lowell and Manchester. 



THE BANQUET AND BALL. 75 

My father was one of the original subscribers, though for a small 
amount, and a director of the company from its organization, and this, 
he says, was origin of his connection with the cotton manufacture. The 
manufactured goods were first sold in a small way by Isaac Bowers, or 
rather by Mrs. Bowers at a shop in Cornhill, the only place where do- 
mestic goods were then sold. As it was difficult to dispose of them my 
father suggested that some should be sent to the firm of B. C. Ward 
& Co., of which he was a partner, where they soon found ready sales, 
at first through Mr. Forsaith, an auctioneer. Messrs. B. C. Ward & Co. 
were then appointed selling agents, and this was the beginning of the 
great business of selling goods on commission which was extended all 
over the country. The commission was one per cent. 

It was as long ago as 1832 that my father was first sent as a repre- 
sentative to Washington, in the days of Jackson and nullification, and 
part of his mission was to arrange some sort of a tariff which would be 
suited to the requirements of the times. The receipts of the govern- 
ment were then, as now, more than we needed for running expenses, 
and the country was clamoring for reduction. The cotton industries 
had been under way for only ten or fifteen years, and a tariff for some 
sort of protection was wise at that time, but it was even then made very 
moderate. The idea was to arrange it in such a way as to encourage 
cotton growers of the southern states as well as the mill owners of the 
northern, and to have it so framed that a fair profit could be made as 
against the importation of European fabrics. But there was another 
important consideration which, alas, since the civil war seems to have 
been almost put out of sight. 

A considerable portion of Mr. Appleton's remarks were in 
approval of the recent message of President Cleveland, and he 
closed by saying that the present was an exceptionally good 
time to put those ideas into execution, and that he hoped this 
year would inaugurate a newer, broader, more progressive 
policy. 



^6 SESQUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

General Banks said that Mr. Lowell soon found a serious dif- 
ficulty. England could undersell him in the American market. 
In this dilemma he sought counsel of John C. Calhoun of South 
Carolina. The result was the tariff of 1816, the effect of whic.h 
was so firmly to establish the cotton industry that in 1886 the 
product w^as forty-three million bales against none in 1816; the 
tillage of nearly three million acres of land in its growth and 
the employment of $208,000,000 capital. In Waltham one 
million, five hundred thousand bales of cotton hav^e been used, 
one hundred and seventy-two thousand persons found employ- 
ment and $42,000,000 in wages been paid in fifty years, with- 
out an altercation or a strike. 

The president then called on State Treasurer Beard who said 
he was glad to be connected in the remotest degree with the 
festival and to be introduced by such a man. The address of 
the afternoon was a wonderful lesson of the part labor pla}'s in 
building up a prosperous community. Farmers made the town 
meetings of Watertown turbulent in behalf of schools and 
churches. In such communities population increases slowly. 
Taverns brought some revenue but not a great one. In devel- 
oping an industry labor was an important factor. Every em- 
ploye who came gave additional prosperity to the town. The 
tariff question is one of labor. He was familiar with the wool- 
len industry. When a boy he drew in yarn while his mother 
spun. The opportunity to build up our industries came because 
of the interruption of commerce by the war of 1812. We 
needed the goods and a tariff was afterwards levied to protect 
our people in making the goods. He had read of the disaster 
which followed the removal of the tariff in 1832, 1837, 1842 
and 1846. In the late war another opportunity came through 
necessity. Clay's course in 18 12-15 developed the wonderfiil 



THE BAN()UET AND BALL. 



n 



progress we have made in manufactures. The way to reach the 
markets of the world is to keep a firm possession of your own. 
General Banks then indulged in a few reminiscences of Long 
Block and its early occupants, and related a story of an English- 
man who said that manufactures must fail in America because 
the operatives were fed on beef instead of soup. The tariff 
gave them the beef; its repeal would give them soup. He 
closed by presenting Representative Warden, the last speaker 




FACiORY OF THE AMERICAN WALTHA.M WATCH COMPANY. 



of the evening, who congratulated himself on being present. 
He had been proud of Waltham's prosperity since he became 
a resident ; at no time was he prouder than at present. When 
a boy he remembered in the history of Waltham two points, 
one was the life of the Bobbin Boy, the other the story of the 
making of the Waltham watches. 

Letters of regret at inability to be present were received from 
Ex-Governors Rice and Robinson, and Dr. Thomas Hill. 



78 



SESOUI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



After the speaking the company soon assembled in the upper 
hall. The grand march was led by General and Mrs. Banks, 
followed by Mayor and Mrs. Fisher, about one hundred and 
twenty-five couples joining. Fifteen dances were indulged in 
to the music of Park's orchestra. 




WORKS OF THE NEWTON CHYMICAL COMPANY IN 183O. 
From a painting in the possession of J. F. Moore. 



The guests who were entertained by the city and who occu- 
pied the head table at the banquet were, besides the honored 
president of the evening, Lieutenant-Governor J. O. A. Brack- 
ett, Judge E. R. Hoar, State Treasurer A. W. Beard, Speaker 
C. J. Noyes, Councillor E. M. McPherson, Senator J. V. Fletcher, 



THE BANQUET AND BALL. 79 

Representatives E. Warden and S. O. Upham, Mayor Fisher, 
Mayor Kimball of Newton, N. Appleton, Esq., Rev. E. J. 
Young, Selectmen Skinner, Brigham and Perry of Watertown, 
and Selectmen of Lincoln and Weston. 

The ball was under the charge of Col. E. Stearns, floor di- 
rector, assisted by S. O. Upham, M. Thomas, J. P. Murphy, 
W. F. Emerson, W. E. Allen, F. R. Gilbert, E. B. Armstrong, 
Col. L. C. Lane, J. F. Moore, F. J. Rutter, F. A. Stearns, A. 
Fiske, E. W. Fiske. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES. 

Note i, page i8. Prof. Eben Norton Horsford. 

Note 2, page 19. Letter of Dudley to the Countess of Lincoln. 

Note 3, page 20. Dudley's letter to the Countess of Lincoln. 

Note 4, page 22. See voL IIL, History of Middlesex County (J. W. 
Lewis & Co., Philadelphia, 1890), page 344 to page 353. 

Note 5, page 23. The record in the book of the Proprietors of Watertown 
is: "The grant of the Great Dividends (allotted) to the freemen, to all the 
townsmen then inhabiting, being 120 in number. The land being divided 
into four divisions, every division being 160 rods in breadth, beginning next 
to the small lots, and bounded with Cambridge line on the North side, and 
with the plow-lands on the South, to be laid out successively one after another 
(all the meadows and cartways excepted) for them to enclose or feed in com- 
mon." The first Great Dividend, beginning next the small lots on the east, 
was bounded on the south by the Beaver Brook Plowlands. Solon F. Whit- 
ney in History of Middlesex County, vol. HL, p. 349. For other votes see 
Proprietors' Records, Watertown; also, Hist. Middlesex Co., vol. HL, page 
344 to page 353. 

Note 6, page 25. Following is the text of the Act of Incorporation : 

An Act for dividing the Town of Watertown, and erecting a new Town there by the 
Name of Waltham. 
Where as the Inhabitants of the Westerly Precinct in Watertown, within the Coun- 



82 

ty of Middlesex, by Reason of Great Difficulties they labour under, have address'd to 
this Court that they may be set off a distinct and separate Township, whereunto the 
Inhabitants of the East Precinct in said town have manifested their Consent: 

Be it therefore enacted by His Excellency the (jovernour, Council and Representa- 
tives, in General Court assembled, and by the Authority of the same, 

That all those Lands in Watertown aforesaid, lying Westward of that Line, some- 
time since settled by this Court, as the dividing Line between the said East and West 
Precincts,* viz. : Beginning at Charles River, and to be extended North-eastward, so 
as to run on the East side of the house of C'aleb Ward, and on the same Course, being 
a right Line, to run on the West side of Thomas Straight's House, and thence to con- 
tinue a strait Line through said Watertown till it intersect their North Bounds, be and 
hereby are set off and constituted a separate Township by the name of Waltham. 
And that the Inhabitants thereof be and are hereby invested with all those Powers, 
Privileges and Immunities that the Inhabitants of other Towns within this Province 
are or ought to be invested with. 

And be it further enacted. That all such Votes and Agreements as have been made 
and entered into by the two Precincts in Watertown, as the Conditions of their Con- 
sent to a Division of said Town into two Townships, be and hereby are ratified and 
confirmed to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever. 

Note 6, page 25. May 13th, 171 5, the Town passed a vote "to build a 
meeting house for the accommodation of the inhabitants of the most westerly 
part of the Town." The vote, however, was never carried into effect. A 
report of a special committee of the General Court, appointed to locate Pre- 
cinct division lines in Watertown, recommended (December 17th, 1720) "that 
the West Meeting-house be removed within two years to a spot about twenty 
rods west of Nathaniel Livermore's house, and that the old, or East Meeting- 
house be moved or a new one built on School House Hill," the West Pre- 
cinct to pay its proportion for removing or rebuilding the eastern meeting 
house. The report was concurred in by both branches of the General Court, 
and April 24th, 1721, the Town voted to comply with the recommendation. 

Note 7, page 26. For a brief statement of the disagreements of the two 
Precincts in regard to schools, see History of Middlesex County (Estes & 
Lauriat, Boston, 1880), vol. U., pages 408, 409. 

Note 7, page 26. Mr. Flagg tendered a site at a Precinct meeting, April 

* Nov. 2, 1720. 



83 

7th, 1729, at the north end of his orchard, which the Precinct accepted, and 
February 4th, 1729-30, a committee was appointed to have an article inserted 
in the warrant for the next town meeting, requesting an appropriation to 
build the school house. At the town meeting in March, however, both the 
site and the grant were refused. 

Note 8, page 28. The first entry in the Town records of Waltham reads 
thus : 

Middlesex, s. s., Waltham, Janry 13th 1737. 
These are to Notifie the Qualified Voters in the sd Town of Waltham to Appear at 
the publick meeting house in sd Town On Wednes Day the Eighteenth Day of Jany 
Currant at One of the Clock in the after Noon for the Ends following vizt To Elect 
and Appoint a Town Clerk and Other Town officers those to stand till the Anniver- 
sary meeting of said Town in the month of March next. 

By Order of the Great and General Court pr 

William Brown. 

Brown had been duly commissioned by the Court, January 3rd, 1737-8, to call 
the first Town meeting. 

Note 9, page 29. According to the list of taverns in the Old Farmer^s 
Almanac from 1784 until about 18 12, the only names appearing as keepers of 
taverns are Gleason and Wesson. Willington's tavern, in Watertown, is 
scheduled as 8 miles from Boston and Gleason's was 2 miles and Wesson's 3 
miles beyond Willington's. In 1789 Gleason's is put down as on the road to 
"Number Four and Crown Point;" later, on the road to "Charlestown, N. H., 
and Crown Point." Wesson's was on the "Post Road to Worcester, Hart- 
ford and New York," In 1818, Smith is included among the tavern-keepers. 
This was Leonard Smith and his tavern on Main Street was opposite the 
present Prospect House. 

We find in Nelson's "Waltham, Past and Present," the following items 
respecting the taverns of the ancient town : 

In 1800 there were but thirty-six dwelling houses on Main Street, twenty on the 
north side and sixteen on the south; fifty years earlier not much above one-third of 
that numi^er. Among these was a tavern on the south-east corner of Main and Gore 
Streets, kept by Thomas Wellington, Jr., followed by William Goodhue, and after- 
wards by Colonel Jonathan Brewer, a Revolutionary officer, who commanded a regi- 
ment in the old French war, and at the battle of Bunker Hill where he was wounded. 



84 

* * * * The first house on the north side of Main Street above the (Beaver) brook 
was the "Cutting Tavern." Richard Cutting was a hcensed inn-holder from 1742 to 
1767, when he died, and his widow Thankful succeeded him in the business, until 
1770, when she became the fourth wife of Deacon Samuel Liverniore and the mistress 
of what is now the beautiful Lyman estate. Uriah Cutting, son of Richard, then be- 
came landlord, followed by his brother Daniel. At his death, in 1798, it became the 
property of his brother, Dr. Amos Cutting of Marlboro', and was occupied by Jonas 
Darling. About 1840 it was taken down and the Massasoit Hotel erected on the 
same spot. This was burned in 1849. * * * * Not very far to the westward stood 
the "Bird Tavern" at the corner of Pleasant and Main Streets, a few rods back from 
the main road. This was a plank house, so called, with the sills above the floors, 
and was built probably before 1700. Capt. Isaac Gleason, licensed in 1766, was for 
a time landlord here, and it was known as "Gleason's Tavern." He afterwards kept 
the "Cutting Tavern," and at the time of his death was keeping still another on the 
lot below Church Street, where Colonel David Townsend resided. There was a very 
large barn connected with the Bird Tavern, and the old-fashioned lofty hay scales, 
the only one in town, stood in front of the tavern at the junction of the roads. The 
property was purchased by Cornet David Townsend, and the tavern was kept for 
many years by his son, Colonel David Townsend. After passing through other hands 
it was taken down, and the land was bought by Rev. Samuel Ripley, who built his 
house back of the old tavern stand and resided there till he moved to Concord in 
1846, when it passed into the hands of Mr. James Ellison (whose heirs are the pres- 
ent owners). * * * * Next west to the Cushing estate on Main Street "stood the 
tavern kept by Captain Isaac Gleason at the time of his death." The site is now oc- 
cupied by the residence of Mr. Hamblin L. Hovey. In 1798, where the Central 
house now stands was an old farm house, occupied by John Clark, Jr., who sold it to 
David Smith, who built a large front to it and converted it into a tavern. Afterwards 
Henry Kimball owned it, and it was known as the "Kimball Tavern." Its successive 
owners were Thomas R. Plympton, Jacob Farwell and Francis Buttrick. The "Har- 
rington Tavern" stood a little west of the present residence of Gen. Banks. In 1798 
a building which had been a tavern stood on the estate now owned by Daniel French, 
Esq. The "Green Tavern" (so called on account of its color) stood a little further 
west. It was occupied in 1795 by Capt. Joseph Nixon, then by Samuel Harrington, 
then by Charles Wesson, son of the builder Capt. Zachary Wesson, then (in 181 2) by 
Capt. Isaac Mills, then by Leonard Smith, who occupied it until he built the Prospect 
House opposite, after which it was used for a while for a dwelling, and then demol- 
ished. 

The last house on the south side (of Main Street) was the old "Brick Tavern," 



«5 

built by David Smith and taken down by his son Samuel when he built the Prospect 
House, using the material for the latter. His father kept it in 1798. He is said to 
have built it in consequence of a quarrel with his brother-in-law, Isaac Bemis, who 
kept the "Bemis Tavern" farther up on the other side. He is said to have petitioned 
the Court to alter the road to run farther south and thus leave the Bemis Tavern out 
of the line of travel. Nelson, pp. 89-90. 

The tavern of Samuel Bigelow stood on the east side of Master''s Brook, 
near the site of the late Nehemiah Warren's residence. The last house on 
the main road was the "Bemis Tavern, occupied by Isaac Bemis in 1798. It 
is supposed that John Ball occupied the stand before him. Bemis was land- 
lord a long time and was succeeded by a Mr. Stratton, whose name the tavern 
took. It was the last of the old taverns and was destroyed by fire February 
nth, 1893. In 1765 there were six taverns; in 1783, nine; in 1798, five; 
in 1875, two. 

Note 10, page 30. The "Stratton" tavern; destroyed by fire February 
iith, 1893. Supposed to have been built about 1760. 

Note ii, page 31. Cut down July i6th, 1888, as it was considered unsafe. 
A section of the tree is preserved in the Public Library. 

Note 12, page 31. The conservatism and austerity of our early townsmen 
in church matters, not only in relation to somewhat superficial adjuncts to the 
meeting house, but in the purchase of furnishings that our time considers ab- 
solutely necessary for comfort, if not for unrestrained worship, is well illus- 
trated by reference to the Town records. Innovations crept in slowly, almost 
painfully, and at times their agitation seemed to threaten the peace and har- 
mony of the community. For several years the subject of a bell for the 
meeting house agitated the public mind, but the revolutionists finally carried 
the day, and in 18 15 an appropriation for one was voted. Parson Ripley, in 
an unguarded, or, perhaps heroic, moment, put a blind upon one of the 
meeting house windows. It made trouble, and in 18 14 the Town voted not 
to have any blinds put upon the meeting house, nor "to pay for the one 
Mr. Ripley put on." The next year, however, wiser counsels prevailed and 
the Town voted to pay for the "pulpit blind." 

Note 13, page 35. The Town Records show that even at the burial of 
paupers the expense of gloves, etc., was borne by the Town. January sth. 



I739"40) the Selectmen voted "to provide for the funeral of Wid'o Wyeth 
four paire of men's Gloves and two paire of woman's, and also to provide such 
a Quantity of Rum as should be found necessary." A schedule of funeral ex- 
penses in 1749 (Nelson, p. 73), gives, "for Coffin £4 los ; Carrying to grave 
^3 los, ringing Bell i8s, Paul £1, eight pairs of gloves ^7 4s." At the death 
of Rev. Warham Williams, in 1751, the Town voted ^300 for his funeral ex- 
penses, and afterwards added ^2 for grave-stones and 8s 6d given to Mr. 
Bridge. 

Note 14, page 38. It appears by the records, early in 1818, that sundry 
person or persons, not having the tranquility of the people before their minds, 
had introduced a stove into the meeting house, and then asked the Town to 
sanction this ex posi /ado proceeding. They might as well have applied fire 
to gunpowder and have expected no explosion. The dignity of the Town 
was insulted and it was voted, first, not to purchase the stove in the meeting 
house, and, second, to order it out of the building. But the fair sex came to 
the rescue and at the next Town meeting (April, 1818) the last vote was re- 
considered, and the Town voted to accept the stove as a present from the 
ladies of Waltham, "said stove to remain town property." 

Note 15, page 43. In the volume on Reports (State Archives), p. 118, is 
a report dated October 25th, 1776, giving in detail a statement of the nature 
and powers of Committees of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety. By 
the report it appears that such committees formerly existed only by sufferance 
until the Resolves of Congress concerning them. The business of Commit- 
tees of Correspondence originally was to send letters and other notices ap- 
praising the community of danger and concerting measures for public good, 
shewing the designs of the enemy to execration and warning the people to 
oppose them. Committees of Inspection were designed to take cognizance of 
all imports of goods into the town and country, to prevent the sale of tea, 
and originally to expose and denounce violations of the non-importation 
agreements, association and similar detrimental proceedings. Committees of 
Safety were organized to concert measures for the public safety of the respective 
towns and general safety of the community, taking cognizance of matters 
afterwards taken up by Congress, as well as the lesser matters relative to 
internal police, "at a time when prostrate law gave no remedy against disor- 
der and confusion." By a resolve of Congress of October 6th. 1776, they 



B7 

were empowered to arrest and seize every person "in their opinion endanger- 
ing their Colony or the Liberties of America."' 

By a resolve of the General Court of February 13th, 1776. the three com- 
mittees were united and took the name of Committees of Correspondence, 
Inspection and Safety. Towns were directed to annually choose such com- 
mittees, the number of members to be at the option of the towns. The duties 
of the committees were somewhat amplified after the consolidation. It be- 
came their duty to transmit intelligence to similar committees in other towns 
and counties and to the General Court and Council whenever expedient ; to 
inspect the conduct of such inhabitants in their respective districts as violated 
the Continental associations, resolves or recommendations of Congress or the 
General Court, or the proceedings of former Congresses of this Colony re- 
specting the War ; to proceed according to laws provided and to inform the 
General Court of breaches of trust of the servants of the State ; and to use 
their influence to promote harmony and to execute the orders of the General 
Court directed to them. 

A resolve of August 19th, 1776, directed them to take possession of the 
estates of all, who "in their opinion," were Royalists and to return lists of all 
associations and persons inimical to the cause of the people and to obtain 
evidence against them. It was recommended to justices of the peace that 
they aid the committees. By other resolves they were impowered to cite sus- 
pected persons before courts of inquiry and prosecute them ; to call togeth- 
er companies, regiments, alarm lists and train bands to their towns ; to see 
the lumber and test acts, embargo upon provisions, etc., were put into exe- 
cution ; to remove stock, grain and meal exposed : return names of persons 
skilled in making flints ; regulate the price of salt, subject, however, to legis- 
lative revision ; and to regulate prisoners. 

The committee making this report very properly says that these resolves 
give so much latitude that it is recommended that only discreet persons be 
chosen for such an office, "which puts personal Liberty, property, & perhaps 
life into the hands of a Committee," and as petitions against the acts of such 
committees are frequently preferred, the committee suggests some more easy 
way of addressing petitions be found. The committee further recommends 
that the doings of such committees shall be subject to revi-sion by the General 
Court, and that all shall "have the privilege every American should have of 
trial by jury." 



88 

Note i6, page 44. It is probable that the road and district so long ago 
and still known as "Trapelo," was so named by some one conversant with 
"choyce Italian," as may appear from the following extract, in which the mean- 
ing, spelling and use of the word in Italy indicate a custom which probably 
was necessary from the first laying out of Trapelo Road in Waltham, by 
reason of its two long and steep hills. As this road was the old way from 
Cambridge to Harvard College Farm in Waltham in early times, the name 
may have been given by some of the faculty. In the "Story of Polissena" 
(Christ Folk in the Appenines, Francesca Alexander, J. Wiley & Sons, N. Y., 
1888,) it is said: "Polissena began when a very little girl to share her 
brothers' work ; and used to go with them into the woods to collect weeds for 
the horses, or wood for the house. Her father went trapelo, as they say here, 
that is, he lived at Ponte a Castigliano, just at the foot of the steep ascent to 
L' Abetone, and kept one or two strong horses, which could be fastened to 
any wagon or carriage, in front of whatever horses there might be already, 
and would help drag them to the highest part of the road, the owner walking 
along beside them all the way." 



Note 17, page 45. Under date of May 19th, 1775 (State Archives, Rev. 
Military, vol. I., page 76). Lt. Col. Abijah Brown writes that, agreeably to 
orders, he has removed the cannon under his charge at Waltham to Water- 
town and delivered to the Committee of Safety, "and shall have my company 
in readiness to march to Cambridge tomorrow morning." Brown was acting 
lieutenant colonel in Col. Woodbridge's regiment and, June i6th, 1775, was 
recommended for a commission by the Provincial Congress (Rev. Military, 
vol. I., p. 219). Under date of June 25th, he acknowledges the receipt 
of his commission. The experience gained in tlie French and Indian 
wars amply qualified the Colonists for the Revolutionary struggle. 
In 1740, Ebenezer Bigelow, husbandman, was in Capt. Stephen Rich- 
ard's company. In 1744, Capt. John Cutting's name is on the Colonial 
muster rolls. In 1748, Nathan Morse and John Barnard were in Capt. 
John Catlin's company at Fort Shirley. In the 1756 muster-rolls we 
find in Capt. Kbenezer Learned's company, Ensign Robert Smith, born in 
Waltham, enlisted in Worcester, aged 28. In Capt. Timothy Houghton's 
company were the following named Waltham men: Lieut. Ebenezer Brown, 
Sergt. William Cox, Clerk Jonas Cutter, Cornet Jonathan Peirce, John Dean, 



89 

Phineas Stearns, Joseph Wellington, Thomas Wellington, William Benjamin, 
Daniel Fisk, Abraham Hill, Abijah Brown, Thomas Harrington, Isaac Glea- 
son, Josiah Whitney, David Fiske. In Capt. BallarcPs company was William 
Cumniings of Waltham. In Capt Livermore's company, of the Crown Point 
expedition, were Abraham Gregory, aged 52 years, and Abijah Gregory, aged 
17 years, both born in Weston, but credited to Waltham. Benjamin Law- 
rence and Thomas Hammond also served in 1756. In 1757, Jonathan Peirce 
was a corporal in Capt. Houghton's company. In Capt. William Bartlett's 
company were William Livermore, Ensign, Isaac Gleason, Sergeant, and 
John Dean, Corporal. Elisha Hastings, of Waltham, is rated a deserter 
from Capt. Cheever's company. The billeting-roU of Capt. Jona. Brown's 
company (Col. Williams' regiment) gives the following named Waltham men : 
Josiah Barnard, Isaac Cory, John Whitehead, Nicholas Lines, William Cox, 
David Standley, Timothy Flagg, Abraham Sanderson, Lowden Priest, Jonas 
Steward, William Graves, John Wellington, John Wellington, Jr., and Phin- 
eas Stearns. In the muster-rolls of Capt. Brown's company, in the expedition 
for the reduction of Canada, we find again the names of Priest, Standley, San- 
derson, Stearns, Steward, the two Wellingtons, Cory, Fisk, Flagg, Barnard, 
Whitehead (promoted to corporal). Cox and Graves (promoted to sergeants), 
and in addition, Trueworthy Smith and Jedidiah White. There are also 
recorded as Waltham soldiers subsequently: Daniel Parks, aged 18, on the 
Canadian expedition, Josiah Priest, George Alien, John Harrington, William 
Harrington, Elnathan Whitney, Jacob Musman, Abijah Brown (promoted to 
captain), Abijah Child (promoted to lieutenant), and Abraham Peirce (pro- 
moted to ensign). 

Note 18, page 46. In reply to the letter quoted, the Selectmen wrote to 
the Committee, under date of May 23d, 1775 (State Archives, Letters, vol. I., 
p. 135), that after a most critical inquiry they find that "Mrs. Milliquet" 
went to Boston but once and then only to get her little child. They are sat- 
isfied that she conveyed no intelligence that could be detrimental to the 
"Important Cause in which we engaged." They speak highly of Mr. Milli- 
quet's "known Integrity, uprightness & good Conduct since he has been with 
us," and think the charges the result of prejudice. 

In the troublous times early in the Revolutionary War, the test 
of loyalty was always severe, and oftentimes a difference in opinion 
as to methods or work caused askant glances from the eyes of those whose 



90 

opinions were objected to. Probably later in the struggle no one questioned 
the patriotism and loyalty of Lt. Col. Abijah Brown ; certainly the ]^rovincial 
Congress did not, as it recommended him for a commission. And yet under 
date of May, 1775 (State Archives, Petitions, vol. I., p. 4), Jonas Dix, Nathl. 
Bridge, Josiah Brown and John Clark, Selectmen of Waltham, sent to the 
Provincial Congress a most vigorous protest against him, in which they ex- 
press themselves "in duty bound to represent to them in this publick manner, 
the repeated & public insults and abuses that the honble congress are from 
day to day treated with by (One Abjh Brown) who calls himself (Lieut Collo) 
who from time to time & in difFerant compy in the most publick manner upon 
the road and in publick houses were compy of strangers or towns people, are 
on any occation assemd ; taken such Oppertunity to declar &c, viz in such 
profane Language that we must be excusd from repeatg that the congress had 
no power to do as they did, for all the power was and would be in the Army, 
and if the congress behavd as they did, that within Forty Eight hours the 
Army, would turn upon the congress, and they would settle matters as they 
pleasd ; that their would be nothing done but what would be done by ye 
Army, and with respect to the General! & Commites that they had no more 
right or power to give their orders to remove the cannon & Stor's from Wal- 
tham than one (John Steward) who is a poor unhappy man thats non compos 
mentis, hereby representing the Generall and the commites as a sett of Idiots or 
Lunaticks in order to lessen and bring into contempt the power & Authority 
of the province at this very import day. this conduct from one assumg 
rank in the Army, in and about the head Quarters, where the Army is, his 
reasons for such conduct we leave every one to judge for themselves &c.'' 
The Selectmen cite several witnesses and and refer the matter to the General 
Court for action. 

But the committee to which the matter was referred did not think heroic action 
was needed. Its members reported (Miscellaneous, vol. 1., p. 125) that they 
had given a full hearing in the matter and that they "adjudge from the whole 
of the Evidence for and against said Brown that he is injudiciously heated by 
the secret resentments of designing persons, and that he ought to be rein- 
stated to the Esteem & Countenance of every Friend to the liberties of this 
country." This report was accepted. 

Similarly, Jonas Dix, Esq., was accused, in July, 1775 (Petitions, vol. I., 
p. 113), with having procured his election to the General Court by conspir- 
ing to keep seven men, who were in camp near Charlestown and who would 



91 

have voted against liini, from getting away to vote. Mr. Dix's alleged offence, 
however, did not appear to materialize in the opinion of the Court. 

Note 19, page 46. In State Archives, Miscellaneous, vol. I., p. 382, is a 
receipt from Phineas Stearns, of Waltham, for ^3 i6s 4d for gun, etc., used 
by his apprentice, David Smith; also a certificate from Capt. Barnard that 
Smith was wounded at the battle of Lexington by the bursting of his gun. 

Note 20, page 47. Matthias Collins, Capt. Roger Dench, Capt. Isaac 
Gleason, the committee to procure money and pay the recruits reported the 
same day (June 25th, 1776,) as follows : 

We the Suhscril>ers do Certify that we Raised the Sum or Sums of money Granted 
by ye Town of Waltham June 25, 1776, to pay of the Soldiers that engaged for Wal- 
tham in the Continental Army in the year 1776 which was Called the Canada 
Expedition, which sum was ;i^i52 which we have Lawfull Interest for till paid & we 
have apportioned the money to those men whose names are underwritten agreeable 
to a vote of sd Town as witness our hands. 

John Coolidge, Josiah Wyer, Ezra Peirce, David Stearns, John Gleason, Jonathn 
Stearns, Elisha Livermore, Abijah Fisk, Wm Hagar, John Lawrence, Jon Hagar, 
Saml Gale Jr. Josiah Sanderson, Saml Bigelow, Edward Brown, Stephen Willman, 
Elias Hastings, Eliphalet Hastings, Eli Jones, Nathan Sanderson, Abijah Brown Jr. 
John Richardson, Benj Ellis, Matthias Collins, Isaiah Edes for my Negro, Isaac 
Gleason. 

January 9th, 1775, the voters of the Town convened and it was voted to be 
the mind of the town that "they will all be prepared and stand ready equipt 
as minute-men." How faithfully they adhered to the vote can speedily be 
told. David Smith, an apprentice to Phineas Stearns, was wounded by the 
bursting of his gun in the Lexington fight and Abram Child took part in the 
pursuit of the British soldiery. Immediately on knowledge of impending 
danger at Lexington and Concord, Waltham responded with one hundred and 
twenty-three men, as appears by the following from the archives in the office 
of the Secretary of State in Boston : 

Wai.tiiam, April the 19 day, 1775. 
A muster Roll of the Military Company in Waltham cald out by Colonel thomas 
(iardner on Alarm in defence of the Liberties of America under the command of 
Abraham Peirce Capt. to Concord and Lexington lite and the number of mi's traveld 
and boor our own Expenses and — 



92 

these Lins may sartifie that my company was keept upon gard til saterday the 4 
day after the fite at Concord. (Each travelled 28 miles and was gone three days.) 
Abraham Peirce captain ; Samuel Starns, lieutenant; John Clark 2, lieutenant; Isaac 
Hager, ensign ; Jadidiah thair, sergeant; Elisha Ccx, sergeant; Josiah mixer, ser- 
geant; Samuel Harrington, sergeant; Joshua Swan, corporal; John Gleson, cor- 
poral; William Cooledge, corporal; Joseph Barnard, corporal; Joseph Hagar junr., 
Jonas starns, Samuel Biglow, Bezelah flagg, William hager, Abijah Biglow, Benja- 
min harrington, Joel harrington, Joshua Garfield, Edward Garfield, Elisha harrington, 
Benjamin white, Samuel Gall junr., Asra Dench, Andrew Benjamin, Samuel Gall, 
Abijah fisk, Jack weson, Amos fisk, Jose harrington, William hager junr., Jonathan 
hager, Matthies Collens, Benjamin hager, Jonathan dix, John Sims, Cuttin Clark, 
Ephraim Peirce, Peetr Ball, Josiah Connors, micah Bompo, Isaac Gleeson, amos har- 
rington, oluer haget, Seth Pond, daniel Cutting, Isaac Parkhurst, Joseph Corey, Jona- 
than Cox, Phinehas warren, Eliphit bastings, Peetr warren, william warren, John 
Coledg, Eliphit warren, Samuel Guddin, Samuel fuller, Jordg Larrance, Jonas Lar- 
rance, Elisha Lieurmore, Josiah bastings, Josiah Brown, Ephrim hammond, timmothy 
flagg, narthael Bridg, William Brig, Benjamin Straton, Stephen Welmon, Samuel 
Louet, Elijah Cutting, Benja Gallap, Elijah tolman, Isaac Child, Abijah Child, Jonas 
Child, Abram Beeamis, Abrm Bemis junr, Jonas Smith junr, Josiah Beniis, Ruben 
Bemis, Isaac Bemis, Abram Child, Elisha Cuttler, Phinehas warrin. Job Priest, james 
Priest, John vils, Isaac Peirce, Samuel Robards, Phinehas Larrence, Jonas Dix Es- 
quier, Jonas Dix junr, Josiah Whitney, william willington, Jordg willington, thaddeous 
willington, Joseph willington, Elijah Larrance, Daniel Starns, Josiah Samlerson, 
Abnar Sanderson, John Sanderson, Josiah Smith, Abijah Liuermore, Jadidiah White, 
Elisha Liuermore, Ely Jones, Amos Brown, willam P>rown, Josiah Brown, Elezer 
Bradshaw, Jonas Smith, nathan vils, Jonas vils, Lenard williams, Elishua Starns. 
Jonathan Starns, Jonathan Warren, Joseph Brown, John Larrance, William Cooledg. 

Total amount due, ^38 8s lod. Lexington Alarm, vol. 13, p. 57. 

Note 21, page 47. The following is the " Return of Capt. Abijah Child's'' 
Company in the 37th Regt. of Foot in the Continental Army, Commanded 
by Lt.-Col. Wm. Bond. Camp at Prospect Hill, Oct. 6, 1775. Capt. Abijah 
Child, Lt. Joshua Swan, Ensign Jedediah Thayer, Serg't. Elisha Co.x, Serg't. 
Josiah Convers, Serg't. Jonas Smith, Serg't, Elisha Harrington, Corp. Isaac 
15emis, Cor. David Smith, Drummer Benj. Gallop, Privates Reuben Bemis, 
Jo.siah Bemis, Andrew Benjamin, Elijah Cutting, Thaddeus Child, Abijah 
Child Jr , Amos Fisk, Abijah Fisk, Timothy Flagg, George Willington, John 



93 

Glynn, Jonas Lawrence. Wm. Lock, Josiah Lovett (discharged Sept. 20, 1775). 
Edmond Lock, Elijah Mead, Saml Mulliken, Matthew Pierce, John Peck, 
Abrm Parkhurst (Discharged), Saml Roberts, Wm Sprage, Elisha Stearnes, 
Josiah Smith, Habbakkuk Stearns, John Viles, Daniel Warren, Micah Bumpo, 
all of Waltham. Revolutionary Muster Rolls Vol 56, p. 251. Second Lieut 
Oliver Hagget of Waltham was in the 9th Company 25th Foot, — Vol 56, p. 
170. In Capt John Wiley's Company, 28th regiment was John Weakley, of 
Waltham — Vol 56, p. 193. In Capt Isaac Hall's Company, 37th regiment was 
John Symmes, of Waltham — Vol 56, p. 249. Other Waltham men were 
stationed as follows: John Greenleaf, Thaddeus Bemas, Josiah Barnard and 
Thomas Webber were in Capt. Caleb Brooks' company of Col Nicholas Dike's 
regiment for three months to Dec i, 1776 — Vol 17, p. 155 : Sergt. Job Priest 
and Jona Warren were in Capt. Nathan Fuller's company in the 37th regi- 
ment in camp at Prospect Hill, Oct 6, 1775 — Vol 17, p. 254 : ist Lieut Abraham 
Childs and Private Daniel Storer were in Capt John Woods Company of the 
38th regiment in 1775 — Vol 17, p. 262; among the six months men from 
Waltham in 1780 (Vol 4 p. 260) were Corp. Eli Jones, Corp. Moses Liver- 
more, George Stearns, Corp. Charles Hastings, William Taylor, John Myre, 
Lorodia Harris, John Colburn, Nath. Flagg, and Thaddeus Gooden, who the 
record reports as discharged Dec. 1780 200 miles from home. Lieut. William 
Warren, Corpl. Elifiit Hastings, Moses Warren and Charles Warren were in 
Capt Ebenezer Winship's Company, Col. Nixon's regiment — Vol. 56 p. 23: 
Elipht Hastings, Ensign, was also in Capt Moses Harvey's company. Col 
Brewer's regiment — Vol 56, p. 34 ; in Capt Haynes' company in the .same reg- 
iment were First Lieut Elisha Brewer and Francis Brewer — Vol.56, p. 37; 
and in Capt Seth Murray's company of the 25th regiment, at Prospect Hill, 
were Cutting Clark and Amos Harrington. Isaac Crosby, of Waltham, en- 
listed at Hingham in 1776 and also about 1780 for three years or the war. 
Jacob Bemis was a one-year man under Capt Benj Edgell, Col John Jacob's 
regiment. In Capt Fuller's company. Col Brooks regiment (Vol. 19 p. 112) 
were Lieut. Isaac Hager, Sergt Peter Warring (Warren?), Corp. Saml Big- 
low, Fifer Isaac Parkes, Saml Fuller, Isaac Bemas, Elisha Stearns, Edw. Bird 
and Joseph Brown. In the six months men in 1780 are recorded John Myer. 
Lude Harris, Eli Jones, William Taylor, Nathl Flagg, Elias Hastings, Thad- 
deus Gooding, Moses Livermore, John Colburn, and George Stearns. In the 
same category were John Bennett, John Bemis Jr., Prince Collins, Abijah 
Child Jr., Peirce Dewyer, Thomas Field, David Holland, Azel Hooker, Minn- 



94 

hano Mitchell, John Ryan, David Stoel, James Twinas, and Thaddeus Wel- 
lington. In the nine months drafts appear the names of John Battis, Kera 
Chaple, Harvey Bezen, John Kidder and Habbakuk Stearns. From the rolls 
of men enlisted for three years or the war in 1781 are gathered the following 
Waltham names: John Smith aged 22, farmer, Luda Harris, 28, John Myer, 
28, John Potama, 25 (black), Saml Dale, 2)7 ■: Habbakuk Stearns, 23, John 
Robertson, 35, Wm. Benjamin, 17, Wm. Peirce, 20, Nahum Sterns, 22, John 
Willington, 49, and Francis Parker, 21. In 1779 lists are Josiah Wyer, 30, 
Eli Jones, 23, Thaddeus Gooden, 21, Elisha Harrington, 26, Richard Hoping, 
18. From other rolls it appears that Hugh Hinds, of Waltham, served 28 
days and deserted; Arael Hooker served 30 months 7 days and deserted; 
Edward Lock served 47 months 3 days ; William Lock, 48 months ; Jonas 
Lock, 36 months ; Michael Minnehan, 48 months ; and David Stowell, 36 
months. 

Note 22, page 47. Miss Lydia Harrington, of Waltham, who died August 
14th, 1888, aged about 91 years. 

In a monograph entitled "New Chapter in the History of the Concord 
Fight," Wm. W. Wheildon says : "A company commanded by Captain Dan- 
iel Whiting 'participated in the Fight at Lexington.' In this company, Sam- 
uel Benjamin, 'grandfather of Gov. Washburn, of Maine, and the Washburn 
family of the west,' was made first sergeant. Waltham also sent some pow- 
der to Lexington." (See page 22.) 

Note 23, page 49. Under date of April nth, 1781, Peter Warren of Wal- 
tham represents that he purchased at public vendue a confiscated estate in 
Waltham, consisting of an old house and one-half an acre of land, belonging 
to the estate of John Troutbeck, late of Boston, clerk, for which he bid one 
hundred and twenty pounds ; that at the beginning of the War he sold what 
little estate he owned and put the proceeds into the Colonial treasury, where 
it now is. Being a young man, just beginning life, he finds it impossible to 
pay for the estate he has purchased unless the Committee is authorized to re- 
ceive the treasury notes he holds as payment, and he prays for relief. The 
Court thereupon authorized such acceptance. Petitions, vol. VIII.. p. 84. 

Note 24, page 49. October 19th, 1778, — 

The Report of the Committee appointed to Estimate what each one has done in 



95 

the War by Bearing Arms Personally or their paying Money to encourage others to 
do the same and proportion the same by a Tax upon the Polls and Estates of the 
Town &CC Also Determine what way and manner men shall be raised for the War 
hereafter Was Read to the Town which is as follows. In Compliance with the above 
Vote we have met and Considered thereof Report as folio weth, 

that there was in the eight months Campaign (so called) 30 that are now Inhabi- 
tants of Waltham viz. Col Jona Brewer, Col. Ahijah Brown, Capt yVbijnh Child, Capt 
.Abraham Child, Lt Oliver Haget, Cap. Jedidiah Thayer, Josiah Convers, Elisha Har- 
rington, Lt Isaac Bemis, David Smith, George Wellington, Ruben Bemis, Josiah 
Bemis Jr, Amos Fisk, Abijah Fisk, Timothy Flagg, Jonas Lawrence, William Lock, 
Josiah Leaverett, Edmond Lock, Elisha Stearns, Daniel Warren, Thad Wellington, 
Zacheriah Weston, Eliphalet Warren, Moses Warren, Charles Warren, Amos Harring- 
ton, Moses Mead Jr, Francis Brewer, which we judge ought to have an allowance of 
3-12 each, which will amount to ^^loS. o. o. Likewise fmd that this Town sent 
9 men to Cambridge lines called the two months men viz. Lt. Isaac Bemis, Phinehas 
Warren Jr, Josiah Wier, John Kidder, Saml Gale Jr, Joel Harrington, Samuel Goodin, 
Thaddeus Goodin and Ebenezer Phillips, which are supposed to have had a full con- 
sideration for their services, receiving therefor i8s each, which sum amounts to ^8. 
2s, and was paid by perticular persons which are not known to us but the same we 
imagine ought to be repaid to them Provided they call therefor and make it appear 
what each one paid. Also find that Capt. Abijah Child, Josiah Convers, Josiah Bemis 
Jr., Capt Jedidiah Thayer, Jonas Lawrence, Thaddeus Wellington & Edmnnd Lock 
went into the Country of Canada, considering the Travel and hardships they under- 
went together with the Extravagant price they had to pay for everything they pur- 
chased of the French, think they should be allowed the sum of ^15 each, which 
amounts to ^{^105. Find likewise that Col. Jonathan Brewer, Capt Abraham Child, 
William Lock and Jonas Lock wer in the Continental service in the Jerseys in the 
Year 1776, loosing their Baggage &cc. think it reasonable to allow them £6 each, 
amounting to ^24. We Likewise find Notwithstanding the Bounty Given by this 
State and this Town to those men that Voluntarily engaged in the Expedition to Can- 
ada (so called) that these men, viz. Capt Isaac Gleason, Lt John Clark, Jonas Dix 
Jr., Josiah Sanderson, Nathan Sanderson, William Bridge, Elisha Livermore Jr., 
Joseph Hagar Jr. (died), William Hagar, Jonathan Stearns, Ephraim Hammond, 
John Lawrence, Sam'l Gale, John Gleason, Samuel Bigelow and Abijah Livermore, 
who chuse sooner hire than to go personally were obliged to pay an Additional sum 
of £6 each Except Capt Isaac Gleason and Ephraim Hammond, who, refusing the 
Town's Bounty, paid ;^I2. 6. 8. each, therefore think that Col Abijah Brown, Jona- 
than Hagar, Josiah Wier, Stephen Wellman, Ezra Peirce, David Stearns, Edward 



96 

Ikovvn and John Coolidge, who went with the State and Town Bounty ought to 
he allowed each one the sum of £6 to make them equal to those that were hired, 
the sum total of which will amount to £i^(i. 13. 4. 

Find also that Deacon Elijah Livermore, Amos Brown and Jonathan Fisk paid the 
sum of £6 each to procure men to go to the Lines at Boston, amounting to ^18. o. o. 
Also tind that Leonard Williams Esq., Capt Isaac Gleason, Bezl Flagg, Matthias Col- 
lins, Lt. Samuel Stearns, Daniel Cutting, Deacon John Sanderson, Ephra Peirce, 
Phinehas Lawrence, Nathan Viles and Zacheriah Smith Procure men to go to the 
White Plains. Lt. Isaac Hagar and Isaac Parkhurst go personally, therefore 
think that each should be allowed ;i^io, the whool amounting to ^130. We likewise 
find a sum of ;^ 1 70 paid in the following manner by the persons whose names are 
hereafter mentioned for the purpose of hiring Soldiers this Towns proportion of a 
Reinforcement to the Continental Army, Ens. Samuel Harrington, Benjamin Harring- 
ton, Jacob Biglow, Samuel Gale, Josiah mixer, Capt. Abraham Peirce, Peter Ball, 
John DuranI, David Townsend, Capt William Coolidge, Benjamin Stratton, Benjamin 
Green, Elijah Lawrence payed £6 each. Elisha Livermore paid io_;^ & Elisha Cut- 
tier 14^". Jonas Dix Esq., Dea. Jonathan Sanderson, Co't Nath'l Bridge, Lt Daniel 
Child, Jonas Smith, John Dix, Josiah Hastings, Jonas Brown, Josiah Whitney, Abra- 
ham Bemis, Thomas Fisk, Jona'n Sanderson Jr., Moses Mead Pay 5^ each and Joseph 
Wellington 3/^, therefore think that the above sums anexed to the respective Names 
shou'd be allowed. 

We likewise find that there went to Dorchester Hills and to Boston lines in the 
Winter of the year 1776 that did Duty as Soldiers, L't Isaac Bemis, Joseph Brown, 
Elisha Stearns, Ezra Peirce, David Stearns, George Stearns, Thaddeus Bemis, Jona- 
than Smith, Elijah Smith, Timothy Flagg, Charles Cutter, Josiah Hastings, 

Flagg, Jona'n Sanderson 3 and Sam'l Green, their services being easy we look upon 
Twenty shilling to be an ample Compensation for their service total of which is ^15. 
o. We also find that Warham Gushing, James Priest and Benjamin Hagar procureil 
each of them a man to serve in the Continental Army three years or During the War, 
therefore we think there ought to be allowed them ^,30 each the sum of which is 
£^0. also Vmd that the persons hereafter named payed the several sums anexed to 
their respective names for to hire men to fill the Continental Battalions viz, William 
Brown 10^', Joel Dix 5, George Lawrence 5, Cor't Nath'l Bridge 6, Sam'l Dix 5, 
Josiah Hastings 5, Jonas Brown 2, Amos Brown 2, Josiah Whitney 5, Joseph Welling- 
ton 7, Capt John Clark 4, William Bridge 2, Phinehas Lawrence i, Abraham Bemis 
5, Abraham Bemis Jr. 3, Thos Fisk 5, Jonathan Fisk 4, Samuel Peirce 6, William 
Wellington 10, Eleazer Bradshaw lo, Jonathan Dix 5, Jonas Child 10, Isaac Peirce 
10, Silas Stearns 10, Isaac Stearns Jr. 10, Joshua Stearns 10, William Fisk 8, Sam'l 



97 

Fisk lo, Isaac Child Jr. 8, Ephraim Peirce 5, Jonas Dix Esq. 6, D. (ea) Jona'n 
Sanderson 3, D. (ea) Daniel Child 3, Jonas Smith 6, Jonath' Sandererson Jr. 5, 
Moses Mead 6, Jonas Dix Jr. 2, Josiah Sanderson 4, Abijah Livermore 4, Jonas Viles 
6, Thos Livermore 5, Abner Sanderson 10, Peter Warren 4, Cap't Will'm Cool- 
idge 6, William Coolidge Jr. 8, Daniel Taylor 2, Uriah Cutting 6, David Townsend 
6, John Durant 6, Peter Ball 6, Benjamin Green 6, Elijah Lawrence 6, Elijah 
Cutler 4, amounting in the whooll to jC^oj. 

There likewise went to Rhode Island L't Isaac Bemis, Jonas Lawrence and Jacob 
Mead which we think ought to be allowed 6£ each amounting to ^i8. o. Eind like- 
wise that Daniel Stearns, Abraham Bemis Jr., Ephraim Peirce Jr., Thaddeus Bemis, 
and Thaddeus Goodin was Drafted to go to Bennington which service they performed 
in person or procured others in their room which turn we estimate at 30^ I -10 each 
exclusive of what they received which amounts to ^50. 

We find likewise that there was a large sum of (money) raised at that time to En- 
courage those that turned out and went which was paid by sundry persons whose 
Names are hereto anexed, viz. Dea. Elijah Livermore 30;^, Leonard Williams 30, 
Samuel Gale 30, Isaac Parkhurst 30, Jacob Biglow 4, Peter Warren 2, L't Daniel 
Child 2, Jonas Dix Esq. 5, Jonas Dix Jr. 5, Joel Dix 5, Samuel Peirce 4, Jonathan 
Stearns 5, David Smith 3, John Sanderson 4, Nathan Viles 3, Cor't Nath'l Bridge 5, 
Will'm Bridge 5, Ens. Josiah Bemis 10, Abra'm Bemis 5, Jacob Bemis 5, Capt. John 
Clark 5, Peter Edes 4, Jonathan Fisk 4, William Fisk 3, Silas Stearns 5, Daniel 
Stearns 5, Zacheriah Smith 3, Jonath Sanderson 3d 5, Jonas Viles 3, Josiah Hastings 
Jr. 5, Aliijah Livermore 5, Elisha Livermore Jr. 2, Thomas Livermore 5, Phinehas 
Lawrence 6, John Lawrence 5, Joshua Mead 6, Moses Mead 5, Amos Peirce 4, Isaac 
Peirce 3, Joshua Stearns 5, Jonas Smith 4, Nathan Sanderson 2, Josiah Sanderson 4. 
The amount of which is ^291. o. 

We find that William Peirce and Moses Livermore went to Dorchester Hills and 
three months Estimated at 10^ each in the whooll 20_^. We likewise find that there 
was a Number that went last November to Guard the troops of Convention, which 
staid till Aprill viz. L't Samuel Stearns, Samuel Stearns Jr., Abijah Biglow, Amos 
Harrington, Abijah Fisk, Ruben Bemis, George Lawrence and Elisha Stearns, which 
we think ought to be allowed 30^ each amounting to ^{^240. there was Also a Num- 
her that went last January to Guard the Troops of Convention viz. Capt. Abraham 
Peirce, William Coolidge Jr., Benjamin Harrington Junior, John Bright, Amos Fisk, 
Moses Warren, John Perry, Thomas Iloppens, Bezl Flagg, think that their shoud be 
an allowance of 16^ to each and to Jonas Child, Zacheriah Smith, Nathan Sanderson, 
Elisha Livermore Junior, Joshua Stearns, Daniel Warren, John Lawrence, Isaac Child 
Jr., Isaac Peirce, Joseph Brown, Josiah Hastings Jr., which Did the same duty 12^^ 



98 

6s each Exclusive of what they have had and are to receive Amounting to ^295. 
6. We likewise (find) that there was a Number that went to Boston and Roxbury 
lines last spring viz. L't Isaac Hagar, John Gleason, Samuel Biglow, Eliphalet War- 
ren, Alpheus Gale, Jonathan Hagar, Eli Jones, Moses Mead Jr., Josiah Leavitt, Jona- 
than Sanderson 3d, Amos Peirce, Jedediah White, Charles Cutter, and Jacob Bemis 
for which service we imagine there ought to be allowed 6^ to each in the whooll 
£84. o. 

And that there was a large sum paid last spring to hire Soldiers to fill the Conti- 
nental Battalions and to Secure the passes of the North River, by Sundry persons 
hereafter Named viz, Capt William Coolidge 2d 202^, Peter Warren 6, Daniel Taylor 

10, Samuel Dix 10, Nath'l Livermore 10, Uriah Cutting 10, David Townsend 10, John 
Durant 10, Peter Ball 10, Benjamin Peirce 9, William Hagar 15, Capt Abraham 
Peirce 10, Josiah Mixer 15, Matthias Collins 15, John Gleason 10, Bezl Flagg 10, 
Daniel Cutting 10, Mr. Pierpont 15, Dea Elijah Livermore 15, John Dix 20, Eph- 
raim Hammond 10, Jacob Biglow 20, Ens. Sam'l Harrington 20, Benj. Harrington 20, 
Benj. Stratton 10, Benj. Green 10, Elijah Lawrence 10, Henry Kemball 10, Zacheriah 
Weston 10, Cor't Nath'l Bridge 20, Ebenezer Brown 10, Jonas Brown 10, Abraham 
Bemis 10, Eleazer Bradshaw 20, Capt John Clark 10, L't Daniel Child 10, Elisha Cutter 

11, Isaac Child 10, Jonas Dix Esq. 20, Jonas Dix Jr. 10, Will'm Wellington 10, Jona- 
than Dix 10, Tho's Fisk 20, Jonathan Fisk 10, William Fisk 10, Sam'l Fisk 10, Capt 
Isaac Gleason 12, 5, Oliver Haggett 10, Josiah Hastings 10, Tho's Hammond 10, 
Elisha Livermore 20, Abijah Livermore 10, Phinehas Lawrence 10, Joshua Mead 10, 
Moses Mead 10, Jonas Smith 20, David Smith 10, D (ea.) Jonathan Sanderson 
10, Jonathan Sanderson Jr. 10, John Sanderson 10, Abner Sanderson 11, Josiah 
Sanderson 10, Nathan Viles 10, Amounting to /^934. 5 which persons ought to be 
allowed the sum anexed to their respective Names. 

We find likewise that there was a sum of Money paid by Sundry persons to hire 
men to go to Rhode Island last summer viz : William Adams, William Bridge, Dea. 
Amos Brown, Joel Dix, Thomas Livermore, Samuel Peirce, Ezra Peirce, Silas Stearns, 
David Stearns, Jonas Viles, Josiah Whitney, Thomas Wellington, Jacob Bemis and 
Thaddeus Bemis lO;/^ each in the whooll ;,^ 1 40. We also find that there went last July 
a number of men to Guard prisoners of Convention 15 Days viz. George Stearns, 

Elijah Smith, Joseph Lock, William Peirce, Sam'l Goodin and Coburn think 

that the sum of 4/^ be allowed to (each) Amounting to £24. Likewise find that 
there was a Number that went to Escort prisoners to Rutland viz. Josiah Leavitt, 
Ephraim Peirce Jr., Jonathan Smith, Peter Warren and John Livermore Imagin the 
sum of 6^ should be allowed Each amounting to £30. o, There was two men sent 
last Summer to Guard Prisoners till the first of January, we think there should be 



99 

allowed for them what was paid to hire said men viz: £']0 supposed. There is hke- 
wise 4 men sent for to this Town to man the lines in and about Boston till the first 
of January Next two of which is hired and sent which two men are paid by the 
month at the rate of i8^ per month including their wages, which will cost about 
66;^ the other two are Drafted Porvided they go or hire others in their stead is to 
be allowed at the same Rate which if immediately clone will amount to about 54;^ 
total ;i^i20. having Considered past services find the sum total to be ;i^33o8.6.4. 

And if it should appear that there has been any Reasonable Services done by any 
person or persons Inhabitant of this Town in the present war either by Bearing 
arms personally or paying money to Encourage others to bear Arms, not mentioned 
in this report, they shall have the allowance others have by this Report for the like 
or similar case. And that their be a Committee appointed and impowered to 
Examine the accounts of the Treasurers of the Companies and receive what money 
they have in their hands and Give them a propper Discharge therefor which money 
they are to pay persons for performing services not mentioned in this Report provided 
any such there be as Just above mentioned and if said money is not wanted for that 
purpose then to pay it into the Town Treasury on or before the first of Oct'r next. 

Capt. Abraham Peirce, L't Samuel Stearns, Samuel Biglow, John Gleason, Joel 
Harrington, Elisha Harrington, Eliphelett Warren, WiUiams Gushing, Bez'l Flagg, Jr., 
Samuel Green, Samuel Stearns Jr., John Livermore, Nathan Lock, Warham Gushing, 
and Jonathan Hagar went to the lines in the alarm last August, think they ought to 
have an allowance of 2£ each amounting to £,yo. That there be a Grant of said 
sum of ^3308.6.4. 

The committee concludes by recommending the levy of a tax to meet an 
appropriation for that amount. The report is signed by Abner Sanderson, 
Peter Warren, John Bright and Jonas Child, and is dated Waltham, Oct. 19, 
1778. It will be noticed that the report is not one detailing service but only 
obligation. No mention is made of the company which marched to Concord 
about April ig, 1775, and was on duty there and it may be fairly presumed 
that the names of other soldiers who were supposed to be fully remunerated 
for their service are omitted likewise. 

Note 25, page 51. Under a Resolve of the General Court, passed Septem- 
ber 22d, 1777 (State Archives, Rev. Reports, p. 185), the Selectmen of 
Iwenty-three towns were "Directed and Strictly Injoined, to Furnish the fol- 
lowing Quantities of Good Fire Wood, from their Respective Towns upon the 
Best terms that it can be Procured." Boston was entirely destitute of fuel 



lOO 

and this supply was for use there. Wa]tham''s quota was three cords. As 
will be noticed, this was only one of many requisitions for fuel, provisions 
and clothing. 

Note 26, page 51. The condition of the Town's finances may be inferred 
from the fact that twice during the year 1780 the Town refused to grant 
money for the support of the schools. 

The pitiful state of the Town treasury during the latter part of the War may 
be judged by the report of a committee of examination which, on September 
25th, 1781, reported as follows : 

We find in the treasury one ^8 bill — counterfeit — one New York $4 bill; also in 
old emission a nominal sum of;i^l6o, but received for;^i22. los. 

Note 27, page 51. On pages 301-2-3-4 and 5 of the first volume of the 
Town Records is written the Declaration of Independence. 

Note 28, page 53. The following named men from Waltham performed 
garrison duty for a brief period at Boston Harbor during the War of 181 2 : 
Joseph Hoar, Jonas Lawrence, Elijah Lawrence, Nathaniel Stearns, Richard 
Wellington, Jacob Lawrence, Amasa Harrington, John Sanderson, 2d, Alex- 
ander H. Piper, Henry Fisk, Richard Cutter, Isaac Farwell, William Goss, 
Darius Wellington, Jacob Ryan, Timothy Morris, Daniel Emerson, William 
Trask, Thomas Barnes, Abel Hubbard, William Clark, James Jones, Noah 
Hardy, John Cole. William D. Winch, Otis Puffer. David Stearns, also of 
Waltham, served in the United States navy as purser, and was on board the 
Frolic in her famous engagement with the Wasp. 

Note 29, page 54. The paper mill owned by John Boies (or Boyce) and 
purchased by Francis C. Lowell and Patrick T. Jackson in 1813. 

Note 30, page 56. The oldest school building now (1893) standing in 
Waltham is the original Boston Manufacturing Company school-house, now a 
dwelling-house, just south of Park Theatre. "The first entry for schooling 
was February 17, 1818. Paid J. Buiroughs for one month keeping school, 
$12.00." Paper on the Boston Manufacturing Company read before the 
Citizens' Club by Mr. A. M. Goodale. This would indicate that the build- 
ing was probably erected in 18 17. 



lOI 

Note 31, page 59. The following named men formed Waltham's quota 
to the armies of the Republic from 1861 to 1865 : 

Major-General of Volunteers Nathaniel P. Banks. 

1st Mass. Regiment Infantry, Co. B. — Lieut. William H. Fletcher. 

2d Mass., Co. I. — Patrick Flynn, Charles Traynor (killed at Gettysburg.) 

5th Mass., Co. D,— Walter S. Viles; Co. H,— Charles R. Fisher; Co. K,— Michael 
ISrogan, F. D. Carson, E. C. Carson, John CoUins, William Crowley, Lieut. F. C. 
Crowley, John D. Curtis, John Daily, William F. Fiske, John Gillispie, Samuel Grant, 
B. S. Houghton, Charles A. Howe, Patrick Joyce, Thomas Millar, Michael McBride, 
Samuel Nelson, William H. Parsons, Joseph S. Perkins, Francis H. Priest (died in 
service at Newbern, N. C), Nahum Rand (died in Andersonville prison), Dennis 
SuUivan, Thomas G. Smith, Otis A. Whitcomb, John H. Whelon, James G. Worm- 
wood, Zenas Winslow. 

nth Mass., Co. D, — Michael Connelly, George T. May. 

13th Mass., Co. B, — -Percy A. Bemis (deserted), George N. Emerson, George II. 
Kimball, John McMahon; Co. D, — George H. Maynard; Musician John Viles. 

14th Mass., Band, — John M. Peck. 

i6th Mass., Co. B, — John F. Burbeck; Co. C. — Michael Cox; Co. E, — John A. 
Hutchinson, Leonard C. Lane; Co. G, — Henry Edson, Ira D. Wilkins, Jr.; Co. H, — 
Lt. George F. Brown (killed at Gettysburg), Charles L. Brown (died from wounds 
received at Gettysburg), Capt. Gardner Banks (promoted to major and lieutenant 
colonel), Rufus L. Babcock (died of disease), Henry F. Burgess (died at Anderson- 
ville), William Boulton, James Burrows, Jr., John Coppenger, Patrick Connelly, Ser- 
geant Major William H. Cloudman, Ezra Chapin, Daniel J. Clasby, George B. 
Cousens, Henry C. Carr (killed at Chancellorsville), Gardner H. Darling, Warren A. 
Emerson, Luman F. Fairbanks (killed at Gettysburg), John Forsyth, Jr. (killed at 
Gettysburg), James H. Fisher, Lieut. Matthias S. Foster, Lyman Field, Jr. (killed at 
Fair Oaks), A. W. Goodnow, Amos Grinnell, Daniel G. Grant, Charles Galloway, 
George M. Green, Edward Hickey (killed at Gettysburg), Charles N. Hoyt, Andrew 
F. Howard, Edward Hatch (killed at Chancellorsville), David G. Hatch (killed at 
Gettysburg), Joseph Holbrook (died of disease), Archibald P. Henson, Capt. Otis 
Hoyt, Sewell L. Hodgdon, Bradford Holbrook, George E. Huntress, Henry C. Hall, 
Henry W. How (killed at Glendale), John Healy, Samuel A. Keyes, Thomas Kirk, 
Lafayette Kimball, Charles Luce, Henry B. Luce, Lieut. Richard T. Lombard (pro- 
moted to captain and after to major in the nth regt.), William M. Locke, George 
Lawton (killed at Gettysburg), James McNamee, Charles F. Moore, William H. Mat- 
thews, Anderson E. Parker, John Perry, Joseph Poiechio, Nahum Piper, John E. 
Powers, Charles H. Parks, Mason M. Palmer, Henry W. Parmenter, James M. Potter, 



102 

Lewis A. Reed, Lieut. Charles Rupert, John H. Russell, Lieut. Francis P. H. Rogers 
(killed at Williamsburg), N. S. Robinson, William H. Robinson, George F. Robinson, 
Edward S. Scott, Simeon Smith (died on his way home in 1862), William A. Stearns, 
John F. Smith (also in nth Mass.), William H. Stearns, John Stedman, George B. 
St. John, Samuel G. Savage (died of wounds received at Chancellorsville), John W. 
Soule, George G. Stone, Warren Stickney, William A. Smith (died at home from ex- 
posure in the army), Jacob G. Townsend, Levi Thompson, John E. Viles, William G. 
Whiting, Charles A. Whiting, George E. Wheeler, William R. Wills, Henry E. 
Wright, Almon Wright, Jason B. Wright, Lyman Wright, F. D.Wellington. Company 
H was filled to its maximum and many of those who were unable to join it enlisted in 
Company K, which was largely recruited from Watertown. Co. K, — Lieut. Hiram P. 
Banks (killed at Manassas), Joseph Corrigan (killed at Fair Oaks), Charles E. Clarke, 
Herman P. Harrington, David Harned, Patrick Kenney, Matthew J. Mullaney, Bar- 
ney McGonigal (died in Andersonville prison), John Quakers, Lawrence Qual- 
ters, John Rodman, Henry B. Sanderson, John J. Smith, Robert C. Sherman (killed 
at Fair Oaks), Horace Sanderson (killed at Chancellorsville), C. H. Thompson. 

17th Mass., Co. D, — Michael Guinan; Co. H, — Henry Holland, Francis McGuin- 
ness. 

19th Mass., Co. I,- — Jeremiah Kelley, Daniel Teadley. 

20th Mass., Co. H, — Thomas F. Mack; Co. I, — Geo. Gray, Sylvanus R. Harlow. 

2 1 St Mass., Co. D, — Charles C. Crosby. 

22d Mass., Co. A, — A. R. Goodnow; Co. G, — John H. Buxton. 

23d Mass., Co. E, — George W. Farnum; Co. K, — William Fogg. 

24th Mass., Co. C,— George F. Blagge; Co. D,— Patrick McMullen; Co. L— Al- 
bert Alden, Patrick McVey. 

26th Mass., Co. E, — Albert Weeks. 

28th Mass., (^o. C, — John Carey; Co. D, — William Waters; Co. E, — Thomas Egan 
(died in prison at Belle Isle), Charles Green; Co. G, — Patrick Maguire (died from 
wounds received in battle), F. McClellan; Co. I, — Michael Cullen, Daniel Kalhuer. 

29th Mass., Co. A, — Daniel Sullivan (died at New Orleans). 

30th Mass., Co. I, — William H. Abbott, Andrew McAvoy, Thomas Murphy, Sam- 
uel L. Ryan (promoted to captain in 1st Inf., Corps d'Afrique), Nathan N. Lawrence, 
cavalry attached to 30th Mass. 

32d Mass., Co. B, — Lieut. Geo. L. Barnes, Otis H. Barnes, William F. Baldwin 
(died of wounds received at Gettysburg), George W. Ryan, Hiram A. Robinson; Co. 
D, — Darius B. Moore (killed at Laurel Hill) ; Co. F, — George A. Whitney, James L. 
Wellington : Co. K, — Ivory L. Cousins, Samuel Cousins, James C. Taylor. 

35th Mass., Co. D, — Marshall N. Arnold, Charles I. Arnold, John Adams, Edward 



103 

J. Brackett, William Barnett, Frederick Boardman, Leonard Boardman, Charles M. 
Bodge, Benjamin F. Briggs, James E. Coolidge, George B. Dvvelle, Lawrence Flan- 
nery, George F. Field, Henry N. Fisher, John Garrity, Charles E. Hastings, Frank 
C. Hall, Charles L. Kidder, Thomas McAdams, Henry W. Peabody, George A. Stick- 
ney, George W. Spring, Lieut. Hiram G. Sherman, James Sullivan, Thomas W. 
Thompson, M. M. Thompson, Hiram Thomas, John H. Whitney, John M. Wyman, 
Charles M. Wheeler, Edward B. Wheeler, Nathan Wellington. 

38th Mass., Co. E, — William Wood; Co. K, — John S. Adams, Capt. Henry W. 
Howard, Leonard H. Miller (died of disease), Elias Mann (died from exposure in 
the service). 

40th Mass., Co. A, — Thomas M.Arnold, James O. Hildreth, Nathaniel A. Harnden, 
Wilson Harnden, William Jenkins, Frederick Manson; Co. B, — Joseph Peterson; Co. 
C, — Maynard Holbrook (killed at Cold Harbor) . 

42d Mass., Co. — , — James A. Townsend. 

44th Mass., Co. A, — Marcus M. Fiske, Frank F. Gibbs, Albert H. Hartwell, Henry 
W. Hartwell, Edward L. Hill, John M. Wellington, George F. S. Wellington, William 
S. Wellington; Co. D,— William K. Miliar; Co. E,— William L. Blanchard, Edward 
R. Blanchard, Frank Baldwin, Theodore L. Barnes, William Dean, Warren F. Emer- 
son, George E. Fillebrown, Amory H. Kendall, William B. Livermore, Leslie Millar, 
John F. Moore, George B. Pope, Edward P. Smith, John M. Sherman, Herman C. 
Tower; Co. F, — Joseph H. Curtis, John M. Gibbs. 

45th Mass., Co. A, — G. Frank Frost, Henry R. Thompson, Henry L. Whitney; Co. 
G, — Lewellyn Morse, Ephraim Stearns, Thomas P. Smith, Nathan Warren. 

47th Mass., Co. A, — George O. Farwell. 

56th Mass., Co. F, — John Dannigan (died in service at Philadelphia) ; Co. I, — • 
John D. Blake (died in prison at Richmond), Charles W. Cousens, Thomas E. Stick - 
ney (killed at North Anna River). 

60th Mass., Co. G, — Henry Murray. 

3d Mass. Battery, — George H. Corey. 

5th Mass. Battery, — Henry A. Fillebrown. 

6th Mass. Battery, — James Murray (died of disease at New Orleans). 

nth Mass. Battery, — Charles G. Parsons. 

2d Mass Heavy Artillery, Co. G, — John S. Newcomb (died in Andersonville prison). 

Navy. — Commodore Charles H. B. Caldwell. 

Navy. — Nathan Brown, Leslie D. Frost (on the Sonoma and the Savannah), 
Charles Holbrook, H. E. Hutchins, Martin Kennedy (on the Maratansa), John Law- 
less, John Lloyd (assistant engineer), John Manning, Patrick Rogers (on the Saga- 



I04 

more), William Roberts (chief engineer on the Michigan, Roanoke, Fulton, Memphis, 
Niagara and Hoosatonic). 

4th Excelsior Brigade (N. Y.), — Tirnothy Connors. 

5th Excelsior Brigade (N. Y.), — John S. Smith. 

99th New York, — John H. Donahoe, Bernard McLearing, Patrick O'Hern, James 
Quinn. 

New York, Co. D, — George F. Falls (killed at Gettysburg), A. M. Jackson. 

1st Mass. Cavalry, Co. H, — William Cunningham, John Dillon (died of wounds re- 
ceived at second Bull Run), John Gallagher; Co. I, — Hiram F. Howe; Co. L, — Pat- 
rick Brady, Martin Brannon, J. Conlan, John Carney, Lemuel Gilson, Lieut. E. W. 
Goodnow, Capt. William Gibbs, William R. Hoyt, Patrick Manton, Edward J. Noo- 
nan, Edward Powers, Wm. R. Peck, M. J. (^)ualters, George O. Sanderson, James W. 
Brady; Co. M, — Lieut. Orson A. Baxter (died of fever at Williamsburg,^Va.), George 
H. Caughey, E. Dennett, Charles L. Frost, Oliver Fillebrown, Edward H. Field, 
Robert Glenn, C. S. Gay, Hamblin L. Hovey, William Hayes (died at hospital, Hil- 
ton Head), Thomas Hickey, Patrick Havey, C. R. Hunt, George E. Johnson, Orlando 
S. Kiff, Charles D. Kendall, Capt. Marcus A. Moore, Francis Miles (died of fever at 
Port Royal), James Marron, William Murray, Lieut. Thomas Miles, Patrick O'Brien, 
J. L. Parks, George E. Parks, James Rooney (died on account of exposure in Libby 
Prison), John S. Rogers, H. W. Riddle, John L. Sanderson, John C. Sawin, Converse 
S. Sanderson (also in 4th Cav.), Charles H. Sawyer (also in 4th Cav.), Samuel 
Thompson, John G. Thayer, A. F. Wormwood, Horace G. Whitcomo, Michael Wa- 
ters. 

4th Mass. Cavalry, Co. M, — John Atkins Jr. 

1st. U. S. Calvary, — Charles H. DarUng. 

30th U. S. Cavalry, — Henry A. Durivage (drowned near mouth of Mississippi 
River) . 

Unknown Regiments — John Bryant, George F. Ballard, Edward Doherty (killed at 
Chancellorsville), Charles F. Harrington (Andrews Sharpshooters), Roger Kane 
(died in the hospital), Theodore S. Keith, Cornelius C. Lane. 

Note 32, page 72. Loudon, in his work on '-Landscape Gardening," pub- 
lished soon after the laying out of the Lyman estate, makes particular mention 
of it as one of the most beautiful and artistically arranged estates in the 
country. The bridge shown in the engraving was built of marble. The 
town levied a tax upon it and Mr. Lyman had it removed in consequence of 
that levy. 



